| Title | Between Heritage, Militaria and Concept |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | The Magenta Case |
| Contributor | Marie-Anne Sarda (author) |
| License | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ |
| Copyright | Marie-Anne Sarda |
| Publisher | Open Book Publishers |
| Long abstract | In the decade that followed William Henry Perkin’s discovery of ‘Tyrian purple’ in 1856 and François-Emmanuel Verguin’s invention of ‘fuchsine’ in 1858, dyers and chemists submitted more than one hundred patents for synthetic purples. This article argues that, although the scientific competition which Perkin started is unique in the history of colour, the new purple and violet shades were not created ex nihilo and therefore have to be studied in an already prolific colour context. From the 1840s onwards, in response to demand from the garment industry, dyers, manufacturers and chemists developed processes to enhance the brilliance of natural purple dyes, as well as their yield and light fastness. The aniline revolution was marked by the invention of many new colour names, such as ‘harmaline’, ‘violine’, ‘roseine’ and ‘azaleine’, most of which referred to purplish flowers. But none of those terms had the lasting impact of ‘magenta’, which was linked neither to a natural material or a dyeing process. |
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A senior heritage curator, Marie-Anne Sarda has worked as a researcher in the French National Institute for Art History in Paris since 2017. After studying art history and modern literature at Paris IV-Sorbonne University and the Institute of Fine Arts of New York (Fulbright Program), she began her career as a museum curator in 1988. During successive positions in charge of the Mallarmé Museum, the Royal Monastery of Brou and the General Inventory of Cultural Heritage, she has worked with very different artefacts, ranging from the architecture of the late Middle Ages to contemporary art, and comprising the decorative arts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, illustrated books and painting of the second half of the nineteenth century. She has curated many exhibitions and is especially interested in collaborations between artists and craftsmen as well as the dialogue between contemporary art and heritage. Committed to the study of material culture, since 2015 Sarda has undertaken interdisciplinary research on the history of dyestuffs with the aim of restoring them to their rightful place in the history of colour.