That or the magenta
(old-high-German [ female ] magenta [A] out of Latin purpura, this takes coloring material out of Greek πορφυρά, porphyrá , of shellfish) one calls magenta (coloring material) from the magenta snail living in the Mediterranean (Murex trunculus) won, leuchtstarken the Indigo chemicallyused coloring material closely 6.6 ' - Dibromindigo, whose color lies between old-pink , red , violet and blue.
It is made of a weakly yellow liquid, which is in the Hypobranchialdrüse of the animal. The substance quantity per animal is so small with the fact that to the production of a grampure magenta approximately 8000 snails are necessary. The glands of the animals were cut out and stored afterwards for some days in salt, afterwards they were cooked in urine until only a Sechzehntel of the mass remained. The material which can be colored could be dipped then into it.After the withdrawal the material had to be exposed to the light during drying, so that the weak-yellowish origin color changed by means of an enzyme reaction to the desired red clay/tone.
The discovery of the methods for magenta production, the Purpurküpe, decreases/goes back to the Phönizier . In old Rome was the coloring materialthe emperor reserve, who had colored its whole Toga thereby, and which senators, who were allowed to carry a purpurnen strip at their clothes.
The color was also status symbol for the German emperors and starting from 1468 was it the official color of the catholic cardinals. Remarkably becamethe garbs however usually with Koschenille as replacement for the original magenta colored.
Nowadays the expensive original coloring material is only very rarely in the use, usually for religious purposes, e.g. to the colouring of garbs for the Jewish Oberrabbinat, or with the restoration from original alsoMagenta colored materials. Until today the coloring material is still the most expensive: The company Kremer pigments offers it at at a price of 2050 euro per gram.
The sea biologist Félix Joseph Henri de Lacaze Duthiers found 1858 that three Mollusken in the Mediterranean produce magenta-blue coloring materials.One, Murex trunculus, became of it as the source of the blue magenta in the Bible (2. Mose 26) determines. In its book Mémoire sur le pourpre (Paris 1859) it treated the antique Purpurfärberei.
literature
- Roland R. Melzer, Peter Brandhuber, Timo Carpenter, UlrichSmola:Colors from the sea: The magenta. Biology in our time 31 (1), S. 30 - 39 (2001), ISSN 0045-205X
