Mauve (/ˈmoʊv/ⓘ, mohv;[2]/ˈmɔːv/ⓘ, mawv) is a pale purple color[3][4] named after the mallow flower (French: mauve). The first use of the word mauve as a color was in 1796–98 according to the Oxford English Dictionary, but its use seems to have been rare before 1859. Another name for the color is mallow,[5] with the first recorded use of mallow as a color name in English in 1611.[6]
Mauve contains more gray and more blue than a pale tint of magenta. Many pale wildflowers called "blue" are more accurately classified as mauve. Mauve is also sometimes described as pale violet.
The synthetic dye mauve was first so named in 1859. Chemist William Henry Perkin, then eighteen, was attempting in 1856 to synthesize quinine, which was used to treat malaria.[7] He noticed an unexpected residue, which turned out to be the first aniline dye. Perkin originally named the dye Tyrian purple after the historical dye, but the product was renamed mauve after it was marketed in 1859.[8][9] It is now usually called Perkin's mauve, mauveine, or aniline purple.
Earlier references to a mauve dye in 1856–1858 referred to a color produced using the semi-synthetic dye murexide or a mixture of natural dyes.[10] Perkin was so successful in marketing his discovery to the dye industry that his 2000 biography by Simon Garfield is simply entitled Mauve.[11] Between 1859 and 1861, mauve became a fashion must-have. The weekly journal All the Year Round described women wearing the colour as "all flying countryward, like so many migrating birds of purple paradise".[12]Punch magazine published cartoons poking fun at the huge popularity of the colour: “The Mauve Measles are spreading to so serious an extent that it is high time to consider by what means [they] may be checked.”[13][14]
But, because it faded easily, the success of mauve dye was short-lived, and by 1873 it was replaced by other synthetic dyes.[15] As the memory of the original dye soon receded, the contemporary understanding of mauve is as a lighter, less-saturated color than it was originally known.[16]
The 1890s are sometimes referred to in retrospect as the "Mauve Decade" because of the popularity of the subtle color among progressive artistic types, both in Europe and the US.[17]
^The color displayed in the color box above matches the color called mauve in the 1930 book by Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York: 1930 McGraw-Hill; the color "mallow" is displayed on page 125, Plate 51, Color Sample I3 Note: It is stated in A Dictionary of Color that mallow and mauve are two different names used in English to refer to exactly the same color—the name mallow came into use in 1611 and mauve came into use as its synonym in 1856—see under the entry for each name on page 198 in the Index. See also discussion of the color Mallow (Mauve) on page 166.
^Brians, Paul. "Mauve". Common Errors in English. Washington State University. Archived from the original on 2008-02-25. Retrieved 2008-02-26.
^Travis, Anthony S. (1993). The Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe. Bethlehem: Lehigh Univ. Press. p. 53. ISBN978-0934223188.
^Travis, Anthony S. (1993). The Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe. Bethlehem: Lehigh Univ. Press. pp. 45–6. ISBN978-0934223188.
^Garfield, S. (2000). Mauve: How One Man Invented a Colour That Changed the World. Faber and Faber, London, UK. ISBN978-0-571-20197-6.
^Travis, Anthony S. (1993). The Rainbow Makers: The Origins of the Synthetic Dyestuffs Industry in Western Europe. Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh Univ. Press. p. 61. ISBN978-0934223188.
