Gray from Mels

Along with the two other colored minerals from Mels, there is also this very hard, black slate from the region between Chur and Zurich, Switzerland. It adds a medium grey to the Mels color palette of slate green and violet. Mels grey is a cool, middle grey hue with less of a green tint than other slate pigment powders. The three pigments from Mels together form a late-Baroque, special color harmony. In Italy, possibly there are other localities with minerals of similar color, but they have not been determined yet. In the 18th century, the positive characteristics of these pigments, both in terms of color and application, caused the Asam brothers to widely use them for the decorations in all their ecclesiastical building projects following Einsiedeln Abbey, Switzerland (later often referred to simply as the “Asam Churches”). The uniqueness of these three colors results from a combination of glimmer and titanium, which produces pigments of higher covering power than other earth pigments.