White lead is the chemical compound (PbCO₃)₂·Pb(OH)₂. It was formerly used as an ingredient for lead paint

Lead paint

Lead paint or lead-based paint is paint containing lead, a heavy metal, that is used as pigment, with lead chromate and lead carbonate being the most common. Lead is also added to paint to speed drying, increase durability, retain a fresh appearance, and resist moisture that causes corrosion...

 and a cosmetic called Venetian Ceruse

Venetian ceruse

Venetian Ceruse, also known as Spirits of Saturn, was a 16th century cosmetic used as a skin whitener. It was in great demand and considered the best available at that time. The product contained a pigment composed of white lead, which was understood to cause lead poisoning that would eventually...

, because its opaque

Opacity (optics)

Opacity is the measure of impenetrability to electromagnetic or other kinds of radiation, especially visible light. In radiative transfer, it describes the absorption and scattering of radiation in a medium, such as a plasma, dielectric, shielding material, glass, etc...

 quality made it a good pigment

Pigment

A pigment is a material that changes the color of reflected or transmitted light as the result of wavelength-selective absorption. This physical process differs from fluorescence, phosphorescence, and other forms of luminescence, in which a material emits light.Many materials selectively absorb...

. However, it tended to cause lead poisoning

Lead poisoning

Lead poisoning is a medical condition caused by increased levels of the heavy metal lead in the body. Lead interferes with a variety of body processes and is toxic to many organs and tissues including the heart, bones, intestines, kidneys, and reproductive and nervous systems...

, and its use has been banned in most countries.

White lead has been the principal white of classical European oil painting

Oil painting

Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments that are bound with a medium of drying oil—especially in early modern Europe, linseed oil. Often an oil such as linseed was boiled with a resin such as pine resin or even frankincense; these were called 'varnishes' and were prized for their body...

. There have been claims that it is partly responsible for darkening of old paintings over time, reacting with trace amounts of hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a colorless, very poisonous, flammable gas with the characteristic foul odor of expired eggs perceptible at concentrations as low as 0.00047 parts per million...

 in the air to produce black lead sulfide

Lead sulfide

Lead sulfide is an ionic compound of lead and sulfur, having two possible proportions:*Lead sulfide, the ionic compound containing lead in the +2 oxidation state*Lead sulfide, the ionic compound containing lead in the +4 oxidation state...

. Other authorities dispute this; the most traditional view is that impermanent pigments and dirty varnish (which is often cleanable) are more likely responsible for darkening.

Paintings and the role of varnish, which might protect the white lead yet itself darken, aside-- according to Michelle Facini, a paper conservator at the National Gallery of Art, lead carbonate to lead sulfide is indeed what happens to some lead chalks/paints in drawings and watercolors and other works done on paper and unvarnished. Varnish is meant to be removable from an oil painting, to strip off when it dirties or cracks; but on paper it soaks through and becomes inseparable from the paper fibers, ruinous as it ages. This is why works on paper are never, or should never, be varnished. Thus far more frequently for paper works than for paintings, lead white was exposed directly to sulphur in the air (particularly from unfiltered coal say in 19th ce industrial London, for example) to turn to the black sulfide.

In any event, white lead has been mostly supplanted in artistic use by titanium white

Titanium dioxide

Titanium dioxide, also known as titanium oxide or titania, is the naturally occurring oxide of titanium, chemical formula . When used as a pigment, it is called titanium white, Pigment White 6, or CI 77891. Generally it comes in two different forms, rutile and anatase. It has a wide range of...

, which is structurally weaker than white lead. Critics argue that many of these substitutes are much less permanent. White lead is less used by today's painters, not because of its toxicity directly; but simply because its toxicity in other contexts has led to trade restrictions that make lead white difficult for artists to obtain in sufficient quantities. Winsor & Newton

Winsor & Newton

Winsor & Newton manufactures a wide variety of fine art products including: oils, alkyds, watercolours, acrylics, pastels, brushes, canvases, papers, portfolios, and distributes the Derwent pencil sets.-History:...

, the English paint company, was recently restricted from selling its flake white in tubes and now must sell exclusively in 150mL tins, even as in the US, dutch-method flake white becomes increasingly popular as traditionalists, fascinated with the pigments of old, seek them out.

Historically, white lead was produced by the Dutch process. This involved casting metallic lead

Lead

Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...

 as thin buckles. These were corroded with acetic acid in the presence of carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...

. This was done by placing them over pots with a little vinegar

Vinegar

Vinegar is a liquid substance consisting mainly of acetic acid and water, the acetic acid being produced through the fermentation of ethanol by acetic acid bacteria. Commercial vinegar is produced either by fast or slow fermentation processes. Slow methods generally are used with traditional...

 (containing acetic acid

Acetic acid

Acetic acid is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH3CO2H . It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also called glacial acetic acid. Acetic acid is the main component of vinegar , and has a distinctive sour taste and pungent smell...

). These were stacked up and covered with a mixture of decaying dung and spent tanner's bark, which supplied the CO2 and left for six to fourteen weeks, by which time the blue-grey lead had corroded to white lead. The pots were then taken to a separating table where scraping and pounding removed the white lead from the buckles. The powder was then dried and packed for shipment.. One happy finding was that it was not necessary to dry the paste of white lead in water. All that needed was to mill the paste with linseed oil, when the white lead would take up the oil and reject the water,to give white lead in oil.

In the eighteenth century, white lead paints were routinely used to repaint the hulls and floors of Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 vessels, to waterpoof the timbers and limit infestation by teredo navalis worms.

White lead compounds were also used as lubricants for bearings

Bearing (mechanical)

A bearing is a device to allow constrained relative motion between two or more parts, typically rotation or linear movement. Bearings may be classified broadly according to the motions they allow and according to their principle of operation as well as by the directions of applied loads they can...

 and in machine shops, especially between work being turned in a lathe

Lathe

A lathe is a machine tool which rotates the workpiece on its axis to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation with tools that are applied to the workpiece to create an object which has symmetry about an axis of rotation.Lathes are used in woodturning,...

 and a dead center

Lathe center

A lathe center, often shortened to center, is a tool that has been ground to a point as to accurately position a workpiece about an axis...

.

White lead occurs naturally as a mineral, in which context it is known as hydrocerussite.

Other synonyms (as an art pigment)

Venetian Ceruse

Venetian ceruse

Venetian Ceruse, also known as Spirits of Saturn, was a 16th century cosmetic used as a skin whitener. It was in great demand and considered the best available at that time. The product contained a pigment composed of white lead, which was understood to cause lead poisoning that would eventually...

, flake white, silver white, slate white, Berlin white, Cremnitz / Kremnitz white, Crems / Krems white, Nottingham white, Vienna white