How colours fade

[figheadair]

On another thread (ancient tartans) there was a discussion about how various colurs fade and how these lead to the rise of various commercial colour ranges: Ancient/Old, Reproduction, Weathered, Muted etc.

Atrificial and natural dyes fade differently and in the latter different colours fade, or not, differently. To help illustrate this I though it might be of interest to give some examples. One has to bear in mind that in looking at these your screen may well (will?) reproduce them slightly differently to mine and nothing can beat seeing the real thing.

Here's an example of a piece of modern weaving of a tartan in copies of Wilsons of Bannochburn's where half has been left exposed to sunlight for two years.



Note how all the shades fade uniformly. If left long enough all the colours will fade to almost nothing i.e. off white.

Now here's an example of a piece c1810 where the shades are as new.



And now a portion that had been exposed to sunlight for over 100 years



Note how some colours fade, some change subtley and how the blue is unaffected. I have not had these dyes analised yet but the cange in the red suggests either that it was not a cochineal dyes or that there was little tin in the modant hense the less than true scarlet.

[tetley88mark]

if the blue is from woad then it will never fade, the fabric will disintigrate before the blue colour leaves, a good example of this is the bayeux tapestry the blues are rich and deep after nearly 1000 years but the reds have muted into oranges and yellows even though it's been well cared for

[MacRobert's Reply]

In all the Medieval and Gothic-period tapestries I have seen the greens and blues appear the least faded and red is often completely disappeared to off-white or yellow.

[figheadair]

In all the Medieval and Gothic-period tapestries I have seen the greens and blues appear the least faded and red is often completely disappeared to off-white or yellow.

The red wold have faded because it would have been from madder or the like. A good insect red is pretty well indistructable too. Cochineal was the preferred red dye of choice even in the Highland by the early 1700s.

if the blue is from woad then it will never fade, the fabric will disintigrate before the blue colour leaves, a good example of this is the bayeux tapestry the blues are rich and deep after nearly 1000 years but the reds have muted into oranges and yellows even though it's been well cared for

Quite true although the blue would have been true indigo by the mid-1700 as opposed to woad. Same comment about the red as above.