News Chemistry

19th century painters may have primed their canvases with beer-brewing leftovers

Brewer’s yeast proteins turned up in several works by two of Denmark’s most famous artists

'The 84-Gun Danish Warship "Dronning Marie" in the Sound' painting, which shows one large ship sailing flanked by two small ships

The 1834 painting The 84-Gun Danish Warship "Dronning Marie" in the Sound by Danish artist Cristoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg contains proteins from brewer’s yeast in its base layer.

The National Gallery of Denmark

By McKenzie Prillaman

Beer breweries’ trash may have been Danish painters’ treasure.

The base layer of several paintings created in Denmark in the mid-1800s contains remnants of cereal grains and brewer’s yeast, the latter being a common by-product of the beer brewing process, researchers report May 24 in Science Advances.