Indigo
Item
Identifier
2025.035
Title
Indigo
Type
Material
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Description
Organic indigo is a powder from the leaves of the indigo plant called Indigofera tinctoria. It is one of the oldest dyes known to humankind. It is also the only natural blue dye. Its colorant is present in other plants including woad (Isatis tinctoria) and Japanese indigo (Persicaria tinctoria), a buckwheat. Indigo pigment was used to dye shrouds for Egyptian burials, uniforms for Napoleon’s Army and has also been used to dye prestige cloth for African chiefs and denim for blue jeans. The color was synthesized around 1880 by Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Adolf von Baeyer. Shortly after, the world indigo market collapsed as manufacturers switched to the new miracle synthetic dye. Soon after, cultivation acreage plummeted and within 20 years, only a fraction of the indigo used worldwide was from natural sources.
Subject
dye materials; dye; dyes; dyeing; blue
Source
Purchased from Botannical Colors
Copyright statement
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