Jean-Baptiste Guimet (20 July 17958 April 1871), French industrial

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

, and inventor of synthetic colors, was born at

Voiron Voiron (; frp, Vouèron) is a commune (French municipality) in the ninth district of the Isère department in southeastern France. It is the capital of the canton of Voiron and has been part of the Grenoble-Alpes Métropole since 2010. Voiron ...

, Isère. He studied at the

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Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

, and in 1817 entered the Administration des Poudres et Salpêtres. As natural lazurite was expensive and inaccessible, different options for its artificial production were explored in Europe. Jean Baptiste Guimet discovered a synthetic route in 1826. He finally prepared the synthetic lazurite, called ultramarine in 1828. It was also called as French ultramarine. In 1828 he was awarded the prize offered by the Société d’encouragement pour l’industrie nationale for a process of making artificial

ultramarine Ultramarine is a deep blue color pigment which was originally made by grinding lapis lazuli into a powder. The name comes from the Latin ''ultramarinus'', literally 'beyond the sea', because the pigment was imported into Europe from mines in Afg ...

with all the properties of the substance prepared from expensive natural source lapis lazuli; and six years later he resigned his official position in order to devote himself to the commercial production of that material, a factory for which he established at Fleurieu-sur-Saône. His son

Émile Étienne Guimet Émile Étienne Guimet (2 June 183612 August 1918) was a French industrialist, traveler and connoisseur. He was born at Lyon and succeeded his father Jean-Baptiste Guimet in the direction of his "Ultramarine, artificial ultramarine" factory. H ...

succeeded him in the direction of the factory.

Notes

Lapis lazuli (blue stone) was originally brought to Europe from Afghanistan. It becomes very expensive due to its source and the difficulties involved in its preparation process. It has been described as ''ultramarine'' (beyond the sea).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Guimet, Jean-Baptiste 1795 births 1871 deaths People from Voiron 19th-century French chemists