Colour stories

Cobalt Blue: from ‘fake silver’ to colourful pigment In the search for useful metals and stones, man discovered silver. It is easy to mel...

Carmine: painting with insect blood The name Carmine probably comes from the Arabic word ‘Chamra’, which means red and from which the wor...

Asphaltum: ‘and when he heard what his brown was made of, he gave all of his tubes of this colour a decent burial’ The origins of the col...