The Victorian Era

What Defines a Victorian Color Palette?

Article · Architecture & Design · The Victorian Era, 1837–1901

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The Victorian color palette was one of the most distinctive and most influential of any period in British design history. The colours popular in the Victorian period moved from the deep, saturated, jewel-like colours of the early years, through the lighter, more refined, and more naturalistic colours of mid-century, to the muted, more sophisticated, and more aesthetic colours of the late years. The palette was shaped by the new industrial dyes — beginning with William Henry Perkin’s mauve in 1856 — by the mass-produced paints of the new chemical industry, and by the wallpaper, textile, and pottery manufacturers of the age, as well as by the taste of the interior designers. The history of the colour palette is examined in Victorian Interior Design, and the broader context is set out in Victorian Architecture and Interior Design.

The Early Victorian Palette

The early Victorian colour palette was dominated by deep, saturated, jewel-like colours, generally set against dark woodwork and richly patterned surfaces. The principal colours were deep crimson and claret; bottle green, sage, and olive; Prussian blue, royal blue, and ultramarine; chrome yellow, ochre, and orange; chocolate brown, walnut, and auburn; and gold, gilt, and brass. These colours were produced at first with natural dyes and pigments — madder, indigo, weld, logwood, fustic, cochineal, vermilion, and the various ochres and umbers — and they were used in profusion, often in combination, often in strong contrast, and often with metallic accents.

The early Victorian palette was also characterised by polychromy, the combination of multiple colours in a single decorative scheme, in a manner that drew on the Puginian and Ecclesiological arguments for the use of colour in religious buildings. The use of contrast — the juxtaposition of light and dark, of warm and cool, of saturated and muted — was a key feature of the early palette, and the colours were often enriched with gilding, with stencil, and with the new gaslight, which had a yellower and brighter quality than candlelight. The principal reception room in which the palette was used is examined in What is a Victorian parlor?.

The Mid-Victorian Palette

The mid-Victorian colour palette was a development of the early Victorian palette, with a brighter, more varied, and more fashionable range of colours, transformed by the new aniline dyes. William Henry Perkin’s synthesis of mauve in 1856 — the first of the aniline dyes, and the first of the synthetic coal-tar colours — was followed within a few years by magenta, fuchsine, aniline blue, aniline green, aniline yellow, and a succession of other brilliant synthetic purples, blues, greens, reds, and yellows. The new colours were bright, stable, and cheap, and they transformed wallpaper, textile, and carpet printing in the second half of the century.

The mid-Victorian palette also reflected a new interest in colour theory, popularised by writers and designers such as Owen Jones in The Grammar of Ornament (1856), who set out principles for the harmonious combination of primary, secondary, and complementary colours in decoration. The mid-Victorian palette drew on the natural world for its subject matter — flowers, foliage, birds, butterflies, and landscape — and on the historical styles of the Italian Renaissance, the French Rococo, and the Hispano-Moresque for its colour combinations, often in the form of richly figured, deeply coloured wallpapers and textiles.

The Late Victorian Palette

The late Victorian colour palette was a development of the mid-Victorian palette, with a more muted, more sophisticated, and more naturalistic range of colours. The dominant colours of the late period were sage green, olive, eucalyptus, fern, moss, and forest green; dove grey, mouse grey, mole grey, charcoal, ash, silver, and pearl grey; taupe, beige, ecru, fawn, mushroom, sand, stone, and buff; teal, viridian, malachite, jade, and emerald; and, as accents, salmon, coral, dusty rose, eau de nil, and eau de mer. These colours were produced in flatter, more uniform, more carefully harmonised combinations than the bright, jangling colours of mid-century.

The late Victorian palette was shaped by three movements. The Aesthetic Movement, led by James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde, argued for a carefully chosen, sparsely distributed palette, often in pale and flat colours, in which the wall, the curtain, and the carpet were subordinated to the few, well-chosen pictures, pieces of furniture, and objects. The Arts and Crafts Movement, led by William Morris, argued for the natural dye, the natural colour, and the harmonised palette, drawing on the medieval, the Byzantine, and the Persian for its inspiration. The influence of Japanese design, mediated by the Anglo-Japanese taste of the 1870s and 1880s, brought flat colour, large-scale pattern, and the sparing use of accent colours to the late Victorian interior.

A Working Palette

A practical Victorian palette for an interior, a piece of furniture, a piece of textile, or a wallpaper, might include the following. For the deep, saturated colours of the early period: crimson, claret, and garnet; bottle green, Prussian blue, and ultramarine; chrome yellow, ochre, and burnt orange; chocolate brown and auburn; and the gold, gilt, and brass accents. For the brighter, more varied colours of mid-century: the aniline mauves, magentas, and fuchsines; the new aniline blues, greens, and yellows; the natural rose, coral, and salmon; and the warm reds and oranges.

For the muted, more sophisticated colours of the late period: sage, olive, eucalyptus, and moss green; dove, mouse, mole, and pearl grey; taupe, beige, ecru, and fawn; teal, viridian, and emerald as accents; and the dusty rose, eau de nil, and eau de mer of the Aesthetic interior. To these, a working palette might add the off-whites of the Aesthetic walls and ceilings — the cream, the ivory, the putty, the pearl, and the parchment — and the dark grounds of the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts papers — the deep green, the deep blue, the deep brown, the deep red, and the black.

The Use of Colour

The Victorian colour palette was used in a wide range of applications. In the exterior of the house, it was used in the polychrome brickwork of the High Victorian Gothic, in the terracotta of the Italianate and the Romanesque Revival, and in the painted stucco of the Regency and early Victorian periods. In the interior, it was used in the wallpaper, the paint, the curtains, the carpet, the upholstery, and the soft furnishings, generally in combinations designed to harmonise with each other and with the woodwork, the metalwork, and the floors.

In the furniture, the palette was used in the upholstery, in the inlay, in the painted decoration, and in the gilt, with the late Victorian furniture in the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts manner using a more limited, more harmonised range of colours than the heavy, polychromatic work of mid-century. In the textiles, the palette was used in the printed cottons, the woven silks, the embroidered curtains, the tapestry hangings, and the carpets, generally in the bolder, more richly figured combinations of the early and mid-period and in the flatter, more harmonised combinations of the late period. The wallpapers of the period are examined in How to identify Victorian wallpapers?.

The Legacy

The Victorian colour palette shaped the modern interior. The deep, saturated colours of the early period, the brighter, more varied colours of mid-century, and the muted, more sophisticated colours of the late period all entered the international market in the 1880s and 1890s, and they remain the standard reference for the period. The introduction of the aniline dyes in the 1850s and 1860s led directly to the modern synthetic dye industry; the colour theory of Owen Jones, of Chevreul, and of Rood laid the foundations of modern colour science; and the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts palettes of the 1880s and 1890s remain the standard reference for the artistic interior. The history of the interior is examined in Victorian Interior Design, and the broader context of the period is set out in The Victorian Era: A Complete Historical Overview.