The main reason was that its lightfastness left a lot to be desired. But this pigment introduced by Von Baeyer has since also been superseded. A production method was developed so that after 1915 the Indigo plant was hardly ever used again. Despite fierce attempts to prevent imports and even to prohibit it under penalty of death, Da Gama’s discovery heralded the end of the lucrative Woad era.ĭuring the Industrial Revolution the German chemist Adolf von Baeyer managed to analyze and then synthesize Indigo. This plant was given the name Indigofera Tinctoria and the blue that was extracted from it was called Indigo. The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama, however, discovered at the end of the 15th century in Asia a plant that contained thirty times more blue than Woad. It was a huge, flourishing trade particularly in England, the Low Countries, France and Thüringen in Germany. Colouring textile in this manner was done in blue dyeworks. This is also where the term ‘Blue Monday’ derives from. Due to the oxygen from the air, the blue colour returned. The textile was then, usually on a Saturday, added to this solution, after which it was hung up to dry on the Monday. The cakes first needed to be soaked in tubs filled with water, bran and urine, which resulted in a yellow solution. In order to make paint, these cakes were ground and then mixed with a binder such as egg or wax.Ĭolouring the textile, on the other hand, was certainly a less fragrant process. This sediment was scraped off, formed into cakes and left to dry. This resulted in a blue sediment forming on the sides and the bottom of the basin. Then by slapping the water with sticks oxygen was added which initiated a chemical process. The plant remains were filtered out and the water transferred to shallow basins. This process released a sweet smelling dye that coloured the water yellow. Only the leaves were used, which were ground and then soaked in vats of hot water until they had fermented. Indigo was originally extracted from plants that contained the dye Indigotine. The name comes from the Greek word Indikon or ‘paint stuff from India’. The colour Indigo has a long history that stretches probably even before the Christian Era.
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