A lake pigment is a pigment manufactured by precipitating a dye with an inert binder, or "mordant", usually a metallic salt. This sense of lake is unconnected with lake meaning body of water; it derives from the word lac (referring to a resinous secretion).
Manufacturers and suppliers to artists and industry frequently omit the lake designation in the name. Many lake pigments are fugitive because the dyes involved are unstable when exposed to light.
Read more about Lake Pigment: Chemistry, History and Types
Famous quotes containing the words lake and/or pigment:
“The best quality tea must have creases like the leathern boot of Tartar horsemen, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like a mist rising out of a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like a fine earth newly swept by rain.”
—Lu Yu (d. 804)
“Separation penetrates the disappearing person like a pigment and steeps him in gentle radiance.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)