There’s a yellow color that’s rumored to be made out of some very special urine.
Hey guys, it’s Karin, welcome back to Little art talks. Today, let’s talk about Indian
Yellow.
Indian yellow is transparent yellow pigment used in oil painting and watercolors. It’s
water-soluble and luminescent, making it especially vivid and bright in sunlight. It was favored
for its great body and depth of tone. It was fairly stable in direct sunlight, but faded
rather quickly in artificial light and in the dark. In oil, it dried slowly and required
100% for grinding, but was improved with varnish.
For years, the origin of this this curious color was a total mystery in Europe - and
really, I’m not quite sure if they’ve totally figured it out yet.
Throughout the 18th century, little parcels arrived irregularly at the London docks from
Calcutta, India.
They were “powdery, soft, light, spongy” lumps that reportedly smelled really bad - some
suggested it was made out of snake urine, others thought it was made out of something
dug out from the insides of animals.
The German scientist, W. Schmidt, stated authoritatively in 1855 that it had been excreted from camels
that had eaten mango fruit. George Field agreed. Others, like amateur painter Roger Dewhurst,
believed it to be from the urine of animals fed on turmeric
In 1883, a letter arrived at the Society of Arts in London, from Mr. T. N. Mukharji of
Calcutta. At the request of Sir Joseph Hooker, he had investigated Indian Yellow, and said
that he could now confirm exactly how and from what Indian Yellow was made.
He wrote that he had visited the only town in India that created this pigment, and that
he had witnessed it being made.
According to his letter, Indian Yellow was made from the urine of cows fed with mango
leaves. The cow would then urinate on demand into buckets. The liquid was cooled, then
concentrated over a fire. It was filtered through a cloth and the sediment collected
into balls. They were then dried over a fire, in the sun. Importers in Europe would then
wash and purify the balls, separating greenish and yellow phases.
He also added that the cows looked very unhealthy and were said to die early.
According to rumors, this letter, or at least the industry it described, spurred on protests,
which culminated in laws - passed sometime between 1890s and 1908 - which prohibited
the making of Indian Yellow. This is due to the cruelty towards the cow, which is a sacred
animal in hindu traditions.
By the way, not everyone believed that Indian Yellow was made of urine. MJFL Mérimée wrote
in "The Art of Painting in Oil and Fresco,” that a possible source for the yellow lake
was extract from a tree or large shrub.
In 1844, chemist John Stenhouse concluded that it was of vegetable origin.
The pigment has not been available commercially since 1921.
Its origins were once again questioned in 2004, by author Victoria Finlay, who wrote
Color: A Natural History of the Palette.
In the book she describes her search, and she found no records, or laws, or news articles
about the banning of the production of this pigment. She visited in the town in Mukharji's
letter, but found no evidence of the color ever being produced there.
The locals had never heard of the practice.
So what is up with this letter? Maybe it was all just a fabricated story - one in which
he attempts to reassert Indian traditions into the then British-occupied Bengal. Maybe
it was all just a joke, or maybe it was such a tightly held secret that no one in town
knew about it. Or maybe no one really ever cared, and the grandchildren of the people
who made this pigment had really just forgotten all about it.
Whatever the truth is, you’ve got to admit, this really makes you question the stories
you hear.
I hope you guys enjoyed this video, and if you want to keep watching more history of
color videos, just like this one, I’ll have a playlist in the info cards above. Thanks
so much for watching, please like and subscribe for more videos, and I’ll see you guys next
time!