phthalo blue

Home » Products » Pigments Checkers » Pigments Checker » Pigments Checker – Standard – Pigments’ List » phthalo blue

Phthalo blue

First developed as a pigment in the 1930s it has an extremely powerful tint strength. Very stable, it is used in art conservation.

Manufacturer / product code: Kremer / 23050
Chemical description: copper phthalocyanine. Kremer PDF
Color: blue
Color Index: PB15

The discovery of Phthalocyanine Blue (often simply “Phthalo Blue”) in the late 1920s, and its subsequent introduction to the artist market around 1935 under trade names like Monastral Blue and Winsor Blue, was hailed as one of the most significant advancements in pigments since the invention of synthetic Ultramarine.
Historically, artists relied on scarce and costly pigments like natural Ultramarine (made from lapis lazuli) or chemically complex alternatives like Prussian Blue (discovered in the early 1700s). Phthalo Blue, a synthetic organic pigment based on copper phthalocyanine, immediately offered an unparalleled combination of desirable qualities: high tinting strength, excellent lightfastness, superior chemical stability, and a competitive, low cost. It is typically a transparent, intense blue with a cool, greenish undertone, though a warmer, red-shade variant also exists.

Its arrival marked a turning point, providing artists with an affordable, permanent, and intensely vibrant blue that was previously unimaginable. Because of its intense depth and powerful tinting ability, Phthalo Blue has become a staple of the modern artist’s palette, highly favored in contemporary painting for its capacity to create brilliant skies, luminous seascapes, and wide range of clean, vibrant color mixtures. It has been embraced by artists from the mid-20th century onwards, providing a new freedom and intensity to the blue spectrum in art.

Raman Spectroscopy 532 nm – ElviRa Spectrometer for Art

Raman Spectroscopy 532 nm (ElviRa spectrometer) Pigments-Checker Database (65170 downloads )

Raman spectroscopy 785 nm

Pigments (powder, no binder)

Raman Spectroscopy 785 nm Pigments (pure, no binder) (67937 downloads )

Pigments with acrylic binder (Pigments Checker)

Raman Spectroscopy 785 nm Pigments-Checker Database (68117 downloads )

Pure pigments (no binder, just powder)

DOWNLOAD Free Raman Database

DOWNLOAD paper: “Pigments Checker version 3.0, a handy set for conservation scientists: A free online Raman spectra database”

Phtalo blue 23050 Raman Spectroscopy Pigments Checker

Raman spectroscopy 830 nm

Pigments (powder, no binder)

Raman Spectroscopy 830 nm Pigments-Checker Database (55180 downloads )

Raman spectroscopy 1064 nm

Pigments (powder, no binder)

Raman Spectroscopy 1064 nm Pigments-Checker Database (50912 downloads )

XRF spectroscopy

XRF Spectroscopy Pigments-Checker Database (77542 downloads )

DOWNLOAD previous database from Pigments Checker V.3 DOWNLOAD paper: R. Larsen, N. Coluzzi, A. Cosentino “Free XRF Spectroscopy database of Pigments Checker” Intl Journal of Conservation Science.