Lavender, Mauve, and Seafoam

[isabelladangelo]

DSC04916 par Isabella, on ipernity

Although this is from the early 1000's, from what I've read, we tend not to loose the dyeing technology, we just like calling colors by new names once they come back into fashion.   In person, the seafoam of the bed sheet was crayola seafoam.  The colors on the right side were various shades of lavender and mauve - all colors that, at some point, we've been told didn't exist in the middle ages.   

The illumination is from the Acts of the Apostles, on display at the MET right now.  I was lucky enough to get up to NYC yesterday and do a quick run around the museum. 

[DonaCatalina]

thank you for sharing

[Rowan MacD]

 I love illuminated manuscripts!  Thank you.
 

To play the devil's advocate though; I would check with the MET curators.
   Some pigments used in period may have changed over the centuries.  They would be familiar with which colors tended to fade. 
 

[isabelladangelo]

Although colors can change, it's typically due to light exposure -which is why I love illuminations.  Specific pages wouldn't be as exposed to as much light as a painting would be.  It's why so many colors in paintings we see as brown today were actually what we would call violet.  Or, my favorite, the sickly green look so many portraits have were actually a healthy bronze - the oxidation and slight water damage to the copper in the pigment of the paint turned the paint to a pale green.   

:-)  In a former work life, I used to be an assistant curator.  The colors of the illumination I posted most likely haven't changed much other than faded slightly - the lavender might have been a bit brighter rather the dusty look it has currently. 

[DonaCatalina]

The colors in oil paintings change much more dramatically than illuminations. Some well preserved manuscripts look pretty much as they did when new, as far as the paints. The dramatic greens in something like the Book of Kells can be almost duplicated today using the same mineral compounds.

[gem]

Slightly OT, but Isabella, do you know how the original mauve (aniline purple, the first chemical dye), which was a deep, intense purple, came to be the smokey purplish grey we think of "mauve" today?

[isabelladangelo]

Yes!  :-)  I actually have a few examples up on my "All the Pretty Dresses" site from the 1890's - when it was very popular.  Mauve was named for the chemical, not for the color it could achieve - it could be anything from what we would consider a pink lilac to a rather interesting purple. 

[DonaCatalina]

I was hoping for something a little romantic- like named after the Baroness de Mauvois or something.
Thanks Isabella for the info.