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The name is derived from the Arabic rahj al ghar, powder of the mine. The Latin term was sandarach and De Mayerne who was writing in the seventeenth-century referred to it as rubis d'orpiment. Pliny calls red lead "false sandarach," true sandarach being the rare orange-red realgar.
Orpiment has a first cousin, realgar, also sulphide of arsenic, which is beatiful an orange as or orpiment is a yellow, an orange-scarlet.A bright orange-red mineral composed of arsenic disulfide. Realgar occurs naturally in lead and silver ores along with orpiment (arsenic trisulfide). 
Realgar was once widely used as a pigment because of its bright rich color, but perhaps less so than its mineral congener, orpiment. Early occurrences are known for works of art from China, India, Central Asia, and Egypt. 
Specialists known as vendecolori (color sellers), a profession unique to Venice, played a crucial role in stimulating color experiments by introducing many new pigments, such as the yellow orpiment and reddish-orange realgar that became the signature hues of Venetian painting. 
In European painting, apart from fairly regular use in Venice in the *6th-century, the pigment occurs occasionally until about the middle of the *8th-century. It is a usual choice for the bright orange flowers depicted in Dutch *7th-century paintings, and enjoyed moderately regular use in British *7th- century and *8th-century painting,