Today, purple stands for creativity, mystery, peace and independence, in addition to symbolizing luxury and ambition. Due to the dissolution of the colour’s exclusivity, Tyrian purple gradually disappeared from the arts. What was once reserved only for royalty became the favoured colour of workers as well. The rarest hue suddenly became the most commonplace colour. Little did he knew that he had ignited a fashion sensation. In 1856, William Henry Perkin accidentally discovered synthetic purple while trying to find a cure for malaria. In time, the reeking manufacturing process that was followed since antiquity gave way to a more salubrious process we have today. From Michaelangelo to Raphael, purple had become the colour of choice for representing gods and emperors of a high order by celebrated artists. Tyrian purple is also found in numerous masterpieces. Ptolemy of Mauretania, the grandson of Cleopatra, was murdered by Emperor Caligula for wearing a purple cloak, which was at that time equivalent to treachery. Wearing purple cloth in ancient Rome would even get one killed. It was exclusive to the ruling class and noblemen and travellers are banned from buying or smuggling the dye. In antiquity, the usage of purple textiles was strictly reserved by law. 10,000 sea snails would give just 1 gram of the dye that can colour just a rim of the cloth. Tyrian purple was usually valued equivalent to gold. Ironically, this was the dye much preferred by the royalties. Even the clothes dyed with Tyrian purple would retain the fishy smell. The stench was so pervasive that women were even permitted to divorce their husbands who became dyers after marriage. The hands of the dyers were said to smell like rotten fish. The manufacturing process was extremely malodourous that it was banished to the outskirts of the city. The more the shade comes closer to clotted blood, the more its value. The textiles were later dyed with this fluid to obtain the purple hue. The boiled gluey fluid would be then cooled down, which would turn purple on reacting with oxygen. In 16th century BC, a manufacturing facility that makes Tyrian purple in the city of Tyre (from where the dye gets its name) in ancient Phonecia would have assiduous labourers meticulously removing the hypobranchial glands from murex snails, drying them and later boiling them in large vats. The species secrets the mucous as a defence mechanism when attacked by predators. The dye substance is a mucous secretion from the snails’ hypobranchial gland. Until the turn of the modern 20th century, the only known way of manufacturing purple was through murex sea snails and the dye was reserved only for royalty.ĭuring antiquity, the purple dye was made from the desiccated glands of sea snails. It’s noteworthy that purple was long associated with luxuriance and loftiness at least a millennia before Peter Paul Rubens conceived the idea to paint this masterpiece. His work is now famously called as Hercules’ Dog Discovers Purple Dye.Īccording to the legend, Hercules, the Roman god found his dog’s mouth stained by a rich colour when it bites a mollusc while taking a stroll on the beach. One of the well-known and widely accepted origin of purple is the depiction by Peter Paul Rubens, the 17th-century Flemish artist. The Origins of PurpleĪ number of folklores and ancient arts have attempted to explain the origins of purple. It’s past is so paradoxical that it is often hard to believe if this commonplace colour once had rulers killed for treachery. One such outlandish history belongs to the colour purple. Sometimes it inspires, other times it pushes one to the rim of unremitting perplexity. History is full of abstrusity and amazement. Tyrian Purple : The Origins and History of the Regal Colour
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