Mahogany
- HEX
- #6C2E1F
- RGB
- 108 46 31
- HSL
- 12° 55% 27%
- CMYK
- 0 57 71 58
Mahogany or Maroon?
Browner and duller than maroon.
After the reddish tropical hardwood.
History
Mahogany first appears in English in 1670, from a source no one has pinned down, possibly Caribbean or West African. After Britain dropped duties on colonial timber in 1721, imports soared, from 525 tons in 1740 to over 30,000 in 1788, and it became the wood of Georgian furniture. Overlogging followed, and bigleaf mahogany came under CITES trade controls in 2003.
Kin
- Maroon: Both browns named after trees: mahogany and chestnut
- Chocolate: Another brown that crossed the Atlantic in colonial trade
In paintings
- The Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck
- The Milkmaid, Johannes Vermeer
- Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci
Sources
- Wikipedia, 'Mahogany' (Ogilby 1670; Naval Stores Act 1721; CITES 2003)
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.