The History on Animal Dyes
Prior to the year 1856 certain important animal dyes, such as cochineal and Tyrian purple, were in common use. The Kermes insects were also the source of a valuable red or reddish purple dye known and used even in very ancient times. The Cochineal is an insect commonly found in Mexico and Central America. It is used to produce the raw material for crimson, scarlet, and purple dyes and the color is usually called carmine or carmine lake. As early as 1518, the Spanish explorers found that the natives were using a red dye.
The descendants of these people still do the work of collecting the coccus cacti insects from trees, and heat them in kilns until they are dead. The dried insects are packed in 160-lb. bags, and sold on the market as cochineal. The various cochineal lake colors are made from the dried insects by boiling and treating the bodies with chemicals, which produce several excellent dyes in shades of red. These dyes are used on everything from door toppers and wooden bar rails to plinth blocks and fireplace mantels.
The colors are used in paints for high grade coach bodies and for coloring food and cosmetics as well. Similar and more permanent coal tar dye colors are gradually replacing cochineal colors for various purposes. Old contracts with certain English dye-houses have, however, continued the use of cochineal for dyeing the redcoats of the English army (which is where the nickname “Redcoats” came from), although coal tar acid dyes are now cheaper and easier to apply.
Tyrian Purple is another old-time dye that is light violet/purple in color. This color was highly prized at least 1000 years before Christ and is still the color associated with royalty. The dye was of animal origin coming from a shellfish. Pliny in his “History of Nature” describes the methods used in obtaining the coloring-matter and the manner of applying the dye to fabrics, tapestry window toppers and door toppers, and pediment entryways.
The Phoenicians, famous in early times as dyers, probably originated and introduced Tyrian purple which was used on royal robes on account of its beauty and great cost. Modern chemists prepare practically the same dyestuff synthetically and it is used as a “vat dye.” Sepia is another fish dye, and is made from the common cuttlefish. The kermes insect is found in certain oak trees growing near the Mediterranean Sea. This insect was used for many centuries, especially before the discovery of America and the finding of cochineal, for important red and purple dyes.
This dye was known to the Egyptians before the time of Moses, and it is thought that the beautiful scarlet of the curtain of the Tabernacle of Bible times was the result of dyeing with kermes, sometimes called “kermes berries.” This material was once thought to be of vegetable origin until the eighteenth century, when it was discovered that the kermes coloring matter comes from insects and is somewhat similar to cochineal.
Tags: tapestry window toppers | tapestry window toppers | fireplace mantels | fireplace mantels | wooden bar rails | wooden bar rails | plinth blocks | plinth blocks | door toppers | door toppers | pediment | pediment