Scheele's green and the arsenic greens
The bright greens of the 1800s were made with arsenic, and they ended up in wallpaper, dresses and sweets.
- Made from
- Copper and arsenic compounds
- Emerald (Paris) green
- Schweinfurt, 1814
- Napoleon theory
- Unproven; stomach cancer favored
In 1775 the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele made a vivid yellow-green from copper and arsenic. Scheele's green was brighter than older copper greens like verdigris and malachite, and by the 19th century it colored paints, wallpapers, fabrics, candles, book covers, toys, and even green sweets. In 1814 two German paint makers in Schweinfurt made a more durable version, emerald green, later sold as Paris green. Both darken and fail in the presence of sulfur.
The danger was real. Victorian papers reported children sickening in green rooms and ladies fainting in green dresses. In 1861 a 19-year-old woman who dusted artificial leaves with the pigment died of arsenic poisoning, and the story fed public alarm. Damp, moldy wallpaper was blamed for giving off arsenic gas; modern work suggests that gas was less toxic than feared, and that flaking dust was the bigger hazard.
Did green wallpaper kill Napoleon? His rooms on St Helena were green, and his hair held arsenic. But most researchers now think he died of stomach cancer. The wallpaper story is unproven, like many color myths. Meanwhile William Morris, whose wallpapers made pattern fashionable, was a director of Devon Great Consols, a mine that became one of the world's largest arsenic producers.
By the 1890s arsenic wallpapers had stopped, though Paris green lived on as an insecticide. Painters moved to safe greens like viridian. The app's emerald and Kelly green are about as loud as these greens were.
Swatches
- Scheele's green (modern match)
- Emerald or Paris green (approx.)
Colors
Sources
- Whorton, J. C. (2010). The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain Was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play. Oxford University Press.
- Hawksley, L. (2016). Bitten by Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Victorian Home. Thames & Hudson.
- Wikipedia, 'Scheele's green' and 'Paris green'.
Hex values are screen approximations. Every page lists its sources.