The Story of Silver: From Shine to Shadow

Is It Real Silver?

By the late Renaissance, real silver in art had largely fallen out of favour. Artists replaced it with tin leaf, grey pigments and later, aluminium powder materials that provided a metallic sheen without the heartbreak of tarnish.

Silver’s decline was due to its cost, its quick fading to brown or black, and its chemical reactivity with air and traditional paint binders. Artists seeking lasting luminosity turned to more stable and affordable substitutes that preserved their work’s brilliance over time.

The Silver Artists

During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, manuscript illuminators and painters used silver for moonlight, armour and celestial effects. It appeared in treasures like the Très Riches Heures and in the work of artists such as Gentile da Fabriano, Fra Angelico and Hans Holbein.

In Byzantine and Russian Orthodox icons, silver leaf adorned halos and sacred backgrounds, symbolising divine light. Sadly, much of this radiance has faded the once bright metal has tarnished into shadow, altering how we now see those works.

When Silver Turns on the Painting

When silver corrodes, it reacts with sulphur compounds to create black silver sulphide the same dark tarnish found on antique cutlery.

In paintings, this reaction can bleed into neighbouring colours, dulling blues and greying whites. Because the process is largely irreversible, modern conservators and artists avoid genuine silver leaf in favour of synthetic metallic paints that promise shine without decay.