Alphabe Thursday F is for Fushia

During the middle to late 19th Century it would seem that ‘Tyrian Purple was all the rage.  Everyone was wearing purple.  According to the British journal Punch ‘London was affected with mauve measles.

Charles Dickens wrote ‘As I look out of my window, the apotheosis of Perkins’s purple seems at hand-purple hands wave from open carriages -purple hands shake each other at street doors -purple hands threaten each other from opposite sides of the street; purple striped gowns cram, barouches, jam up cabs, throng steamers, fill railway stations; all flying countryward, like so many migrating birds of purple Paradise’.

It would seem that anyone who had the facilities to experiment with the purple aniline (a by product of coal tar) would be eager to find a new alternative. As luck would have it François-Emanuel Verguin; a one time manager of an acid factory began to experiment with reagents he happened to have on his shelves.  In 1859 he got lucky; he mixed aniline with chloride and obtained a deep red substance.  He called it Fuchsine as it closely resembled  the colour of the fuchsia flower.  Some called it roseine, but as the colour gained popularity when named Magenta in honour of the Italian town where the French Army fought and defeated the Austrians in June 1859.