A Dictionary of Arts: Purple of Cassius.

A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice

by Andrew Ure, M. D.;
F. R. S. M. G. S. Lond.: M. Acad. M. S. Philad.; S. PH. DOC. N. GERM. Ranow.; Mulh. Etc. Etc.

Illustrated with nearly fifteen hundred engravings on wood
Eleventh American, From The Last London Edition.
To which is appended, a Supplement of Recent Improvements to The Present Time.

New York: D Appleton & company, 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 148 Chestnut St.
MDCCCXLVII

1847

PURPLE OF CASSIUS. Gold purple (Pourpre de Cassius, Fr.; Gold-purpur, Germ.), is a vitrifiable pigment, which stains glass and porcelain of a beautiful red or purple hue. Its preparation has been deemed a process of such nicety, as to be liable to fail in the most experienced hands. The following observations will, I hope, place the subject upon a surer footing.

The proper pigment can be obtained only by adding to a neutral muriate of gold a mixture of the protochloride and perchloride of tin. Everything depends upon this intermediate state of the tin; for the protochloride does not afford, even with a concentrated solution of gold, either a chestnut-brown, a blue, a green, a metallic precipitate, or one of a purple tone; the perchloride occasions no precipitate whatever, whether the solution of gold be strong or dilute; but a properly neutral mixture, of 1 part of crystallized protochloride of tin, with 2 parts of crystallized perchloride, produces, with 1 part of crystallized chloride of gold (all being in solution), a beautiful purple-colored precipitate. An excess of the protosalt of tin gives a yellow, blue, or green cast; an excess of the persalt gives a red and violet cast; an excess in the gold salt occasions, with heat (but not otherwise), a change from the violet and chestnutbrown precipitate into red. According to Fuchs, a solution of the sesquioxyde of tin in muriatic acid, or of the sesquichloride in water, serves the same purpose, when dropped into a very dilute solution of gold.

Buisson prepared gold-purple in the following way. He dissolves, first, 1 gramme of the best tin in a sufficient quantity of muriatic acid, taking care that the solution is neutral; next, 2 grammes of tin in aqua regia, composed of 3 parts of nitric acid, and 1 part of muriatic, so that the solution can contain no protoxide; lastly, 7 grammes of fine gold in a mixture of 1 part of nitric acid, and 6 of muriatic, observing to make the solution neutral. This solution of gold being diluted with 3½ litres of water (about three quarts), the solution of the perchloride of tin is to be added at once, and afterwards that of the protochloride, drop by drop, till the precipitate thereby formed acquires the wished-for tone; after which it should be edulcorated by washing, as quickly as possible.

Frick gives the following prescription: - Let tin be set to dissolve in very dilute aqua regia without heat, till the fluid becomes faintly opalescent, when the metal must be taken out, and weighed. The liquor is to be diluted largely with water, and a definite weight of a dilute solution of gold, and dilute sulphuric acid, is to be simultaneously stirred into the nitro-muriate of tin. The quantity of solution of gold to be poured into the tin liquor must be such, that the gold in the one is to the tin in the other in the ratio of 36 to 10.

Gold-purple becomes brighter when it is dry, but appears still as a dirty-brown powder. Muriatic acid takes the tin out of the fresh-made precipitate, and leaves the gold either in the state of metal or of a blue powder. At a temperature between 212° and 300° Fahr., mercury dissolves out all the gold from the ordinary purple of Cassius.

Relative to the constitution of gold-purple, two views are entertained: according to the first, the gold is associated in the metallic state along with the oxide of tin; according to the second, the gold exists as a purple oxide along with the sesquioxyde or peroxyde of tin. Its composition is differently reported by different chemists. The constituents, according to -
Oberkampf, in the purple precipitate, are - Gold 39.82 | Tin oxide 60.18
. violet ditto - 20.58 | 79.42
Berzelius - 30.725 | 69.275
Buisson - 30.19 | 69.81
Gay Lussac - 30.89 | 69.11
Fuchs - 17.57 | 82.13

If to a mixture of protochloride of tin, and perchloride of iron, a properly diluted solution of gold be added, a very beautiful purple precipitate of Cassius will immediately fall, while the iron will be left in the liquid in the state of a protochloride. The purple thus prepared keeps in the air for a long tie without alteration. Mercury does not take from it the smallest trace of gold. -Fuchs' Journal für Chemie, t. xv.