Tyrian purple, "Electric purple" & my fascination with the history of colour: two recent projects

As some of you no doubt know, I am enthralled by the history of colour.

Here are two fascinating projects that indicate I am not alone in this.

First, there is this project by Mouhamad Ghassen Nouira in Tunisia to re-create Tyrian purple, which was was world-renowned in the Ancient World.

Thanks to Joshua Dilliott for information about this video:

Then, at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford till mid-February there is a fabulous exhibit entitled “Colour Revolution: Victorian Art, Fashion, and Design.” I am not going to be able to go in person and will have to content myself with online articles such as this one in The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2023/sep/08/colour-revolution-victorian-textiles-ashmolean-oxford) and the book accompanying the exhibition that I can purchase online from the Ashmolean.

Below is a good example of the Victoian chromaphilia or love of colour. This “electric purple” dress belonged to the daughter of a Baptist minister, and its purple hue was not obtained from the shellfish as above but from coal tar as discovered by William Henry Perkin. He called it “mauveine,” or as we call it now, “mauve.”

For the exhibit, see here:

https://www.ashmolean.org/exhibition/colour-revolution-victorian-art-fashion-design