00:00This is the most expensive blue paint in the world.
00:06It comes from these lapis lazuli rocks extracted from mines in Afghanistan.
00:12But you can't just crush up lapis lazuli and turn it into paint like you would with many other natural pigments.
00:19It takes a laborious process to create the color called ultramarine blue.
00:25We found it priced as high as $460 for a 225 milliliter tube of oil paint that was on sale.
00:34This identically sized tube of synthetic ultramarine costs only $19.
00:42Lapis lazuli pigment has been expensive since ancient times.
00:46But modern day artists have the option of a much cheaper alternative.
00:51So why do some still favor the natural stuff?
00:54And why is it so expensive?
01:00The first step in turning lapis lazuli stone into paint is to crush it.
01:06Next, keep crushing it.
01:09Sometimes I sneeze and it's blue.
01:11I mean, it's my hair, they would be all blue.
01:16Pigment maker Mohammed Irfan's goal is a fine powder.
01:20But not too fine or else he will have a difficult time extracting the bright blue lazuli from the other minerals in the stone.
01:29If the lazuli isn't pure enough, you end up with a muddy grayish color rather than the true blue ultramarine is known for.
01:36That's because the lapis lazuli rock contains a mixture of minerals that left in the mix can dilute the color of the finished product.
01:45Can you see the blue, blue parts?
01:48So it's all lazuli.
01:50It's lazuli, pyrite, silicate.
01:54So our job is to remove all those impurities and just extract lazuli.
02:00But isolating pigment isn't easy.
02:04When Business Insider visited Mohammed's workshop in Canada, he showed us the Sanini method, named after the Italian painter who most famously described it.
02:14It's one of the oldest and most labor-intensive ways to turn lapis lazuli into Fra Angelico, the purest ultramarine blue pigment.
02:22It takes longer and produces less pigment than other methods, so it's usually reserved for specialty orders.
02:30We extract lazuli by Sanini method when we are supplying to different museums and for the restoration projects.
02:37What separates the Sanini method from other methods is that the powder gets turned into a dough.
02:44Mohammed heats the lapis lazuli powder with beeswax, pine resin, mastic gum, and linseed oil.
02:50See, like this one, mastic.
02:54So when I'm doing this, I sometimes start eating them, you know, it's so good.
03:07Traditionally, the mixture is stored for a week and kneaded every day.
03:11Instead, Mohammed rolls his dough into little balls and lets them dry for two or three days.
03:17Wow, it smells so good.
03:20This reminds me, you know, actually I was raised in Pakistan, the north of Pakistan, with pine trees.
03:27All over you can see the pine trees and I can, it feels me when I'm smelling this one.
03:33It looks like I'm in that area of my childhood where I grown up.
03:37I used to make long sticks and then extract it with hand, but I don't use hands now, I have another machine.
03:46This is an even bigger deviation from Sanini's original method.
03:50He specified that the pigment should be washed out of the dough by hand, specifically the hands of a young girl.
03:56Mohammed's method is mostly hands free, opting for a ball mill that tumbles the dough balls with steel balls and hot water.
04:05They will push each other and, you know, it will create a, it will help to take out these lazarite.
04:13It will make them soften and so the lazarite is going to come quickly and easily.
04:20After about two hours, the lazarite will be pulled into the water, leaving the other minerals stuck in the dough.
04:35I have removed this water.
04:37You can see this, this is all fra angelic.
04:48But it needs washing five, six more times.
04:52After the final wash, Mohammed will run the drained pigment through a dehydrator.
04:58And in about two hours, it's ready to use.
05:02So now you can see this a beautiful color.
05:07And I'm really happy with the results.
05:09It's not much.
05:11See with, with the, with the 400 gram of using Lapis Tuzuli, we only got this much.
05:18And this is around 20 to 30 gram.
05:23This size of the jar of Fra Angelico Sinini, it sells around $190.
05:29Mohammed's company, DeMairo, produces 4,000 to 5,000 pounds of Lapis Lazuli pigment every year,
05:38mostly using a secret method that he took six years to develop.
05:46While the Sinini method can take up to four days to produce one kilo of pigment,
05:52Mohammed's method yields up to 20 kilos in a single day.
05:55That's for the bulk orders.
05:58Like Michael Harding, he, we supply to him.
06:00So his orders are usually like 200 to 400 kilo.
06:05So that we cannot extract by the Sinini method.
06:08Mohammed has spent nearly his whole life thinking about Lapis Lazuli.
06:12He grew up in Pakistan on the border of Afghanistan,
06:16the region where most of the world's Lapis Lazuli comes from.
06:18I think I was seven or eight years old and someone brought Lapis Ruff to show to my grandfather.
06:27And at that time when I saw Lapis, I got so fascinated with its pyrite and the color.
06:34And I thought like, oh, what is this?
06:35But getting Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan these days is more than a matter of expense.
06:46In June 2025, we sent a videographer to see how Lapis Lazuli is mined at Sarisangi,
06:52the largest source of the stone in the world.
06:54From the capital city of Kabul, it's about a 10-hour drive to Faizabad.
07:04Then it's another five hours or so to the remote mine, across treacherous mountain roads.
07:15After the daunting journey, what we found was not what we were expecting.
07:19We'd coordinated with the Ministry of Culture and Information, which either didn't know or didn't give us any indication the mine wouldn't be operational.
07:42We don't know exactly why the mines have closed, but they've been under Taliban control since it took over in 2021, following the U.S.'s withdrawal from the country.
07:55Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan has come under criticism for potentially funding the militant fundamentalist movement.
08:03But it's still the world's highest quality source of the stuff.
08:06The mines here are saturated with lazarite, making the stones bluer and more intense than Lapis Lazuli found elsewhere.
08:17Afghanistan is also the location of the first known use of Lapis Lazuli as a pigment.
08:23These 6th or 7th century wall paintings near the Buddhas of Bamiyan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, used generous amounts of ultramarine.
08:31Since then, it's been used by artists all over the world, like in this 16th century copy of the Book of Kings from Persia, or in Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring from the 17th century.
08:44During the Renaissance, Lapis Lazuli was the highest quality and most expensive shade of blue painters could buy.
08:50Its luxury status, combined with the Christian symbolism of blue representing divinity, meant they used it almost exclusively in religious contexts, like the robes of the Virgin Mary.
09:03And Michelangelo reserved it for the heavens in the Last Judgment.
09:07These days, you don't need funding from the Pope to afford a version of ultramarine blue.
09:12Artists can now use a cheaper synthetic option.
09:17Today, it sometimes costs 24 times less than the natural stuff.
09:21And while the two varieties are mostly identical, artists will still reach for the pricier natural one for certain occasions.
09:28Lapis Lazuli has a crystalline structure, so it reflects light.
09:33And the synthetic one, it absorbs more light.
09:37So when you see the difference of synthetic after painting, it's like the lapis is going to be more brilliant, more vivid than the synthetic one.
09:50Some artists like the textural quality a natural pigment provides.
09:54There's also simply the bottom line to consider.
09:56It adds value to their artwork.
10:00So when they're using synthetic, if someone is selling a painting for, let's suppose, $1,000.
10:08But when they use Lapis Lazuli pigment, they can sell the same painting for $5,000.
10:15To turn the pigment into paint, Mohamed mixes it with oil.
10:19It's so smooth that even I haven't used it.
10:23It mixes so well.
10:26If it's made properly, you don't need to use the Mueller.
10:31I use walnut oil for when I'm checking because it's not so yellow.
10:37So it's really give me the real shades and colour and I can check its quality.
10:43For the last 10 years, the demand has gone so up, even individual artists and plus the companies.
10:51And especially the last three, four years, because of the AI, I see the big demand for the real artwork now.
10:59So our target is to make it available for everyone so we can share the beauty of this beautiful rock and pigment with everyone.
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