Kinetics of oil saponification by lead salts in ancient preparations of pharmaceutical lead plasters and painting lead mediums

Lead soaps can be found in archaeological cosmetics as well as in oil paintings, as product of interactions of lead salts with oil. In this context, a better understanding of the formation of lead soaps allows a follow-up of the historical evolution of preparation recipes and provides new insights into conservation conditions. First, ancient recipes of both pharmaceutical lead plasters and painting lead mediums, mixtures of oil and lead salts, were reconstructed. The ester saponification by lead salts is determined by the preparation parameters which were quantified by FT-IR spectrometry. In particular, ATR/FT-IR spectrometer was calibrated by the standard addition method to quantitatively follow the kinetics of this reaction. The influence of different parameters such as temperature, presence of water and choice of lead salts was assessed: the saponification is clearly accelerated by water and heating. This analysis provides chemical explanations to the historical evolution of cosmetic and painting preparation recipes.