While the mystery of how the craft of dyeing came
about remains lost 3 , there is more to it than finding
out which colors or dyestuffs may have been used
first. Few dyes, with the most notable exception of
indigo, inherently stick to the fabric fibers without
an intermediary agent known as a mordant, which
bonds to both the dye and the fiber, like a sort of
glue. The puzzle then would involve how the first
dyers discovered what would work as mordants.
There are spotty references to dyes among some
classical authors and in medieval manuscripts.
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance a
thriving textile industry flourished throughout
Europe. The craft guilds reigned and the secrets of
their know-how were guarded against interlopers.
The first printed practical guidebook on dyeing,
published in Venice in 1548, was the Plictho of
Giovanventura Rosetti, subtitled Instructions in
the Art of the Dyers Which Teaches the Dyeing of
Woolen Cloths, Linens, Cottons, and Silks by the
Great Arts as Well as by the Common. This “great
art” of dyeing can be witnessed in paintings of
the aristocracy in their sumptuous attire and the
magnificent tapestries of the period. The common
method practiced by the peasants who spun and
wove their own clothes depended on the sources
they grew in gardens or gathered from open fields
and woods.
Even as the Industrial Revolution was taking hold
in the mid-19th century, the dye trade continued
very much as it always had with natural dyes, 4 but
this was about to change. In 1856 young English
chemist (he was 18) William Henry Perkin was
trying to synthesize the natural anti-malarial
drug quinine in his London home lab when he
discovered by accident that the coal tar derivative
aniline could, by a certain process, be made to
produce an intensely purple color: mauve (from
the French word for the color of the purplish
mallow flower). In no time he was able to put the
dye into industrial production. There had been
nothing like it since the immensely expensive
Tyrian purple of the Roman Caesars, 5 but now
it was available to the masses. Mauve became a
sensation, not only making its discoverer wealthy
but also giving his name a sure place in the annals
of chemistry.
The Triumph of Fame
ca. 1502–4
Tapestry
Wool, silk (6-7 warp threads per cm.)
141 1/2 x 132” (359.4 x 335.3 cm)
Metropolitan Museum, New York
The Annenberg Foundation Gift, 1998
Accession Number: 1998.205
The beautiful blue here is very likely woad, very similar to indigo, which was widely
cultivated in Europe in the Middle Ages. Its use required considerable care and
expertise.
In 1869 Perkin took the industry a step further when, using the coal tar
derivative anthracene, he synthesized the red coloring agent from the
traditional dye from the root of the madder plant: alizarin. Because this
could be done more cheaply on a coal based industrial scale instead of an
agricultural one, the madder growing industry, with few exceptions, came to
an end.
With ever increasing understanding of organic chemistry, the replacement of
natural dyes by synthetic ones came about rapidly. Coal tar is made available
mainly as a byproduct of the coke industry, essential for making steel. A ton
of coal yields 70-100 lbs. of tar, but the massive scale of the industry means
that there is a great deal of it to work with. Coal tar is made up of various
organic compounds that are processed to make molecular building blocks for
use in all sorts of things: pharmaceutics (like ordinary aspirin), insecticides,
solvents, synthetic resins, explosives (TNT), and much more.
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