Zaffre

{{Short description|Deep blue pigment}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}} {{infobox color |title=Zaffre (Zaffer) |hex=0014A8 |source=X11 |isccname=Deep blue }} '''Zaffre''' (also spelt '''Zaffer''' in American English, see spelling differences), a prescientific, or alchemical substance, is a deep blue pigment obtained by roasting cobalt ore, and is made of either an impure form of cobalt oxide<ref name=ClayArt>{{Cite web |url=http://www.potters.org/subject74249.htm |title=ClayArt |access-date=24 August 2006 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303203629/http://www.potters.org/subject74249.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> or impure cobalt arsenate. During the Victorian Era, zaffre was used to prepare smalt and to stain glass blue.<ref>''Mackenzie's Five Thousand Receipts in All the Useful and Domestic Arts '', 1845, "Pottery: Black glazing p 369.</ref>

The first recorded use of ''zaffer'' as a color name in English was sometime in the 1550s (exact year uncertain).<ref>Maerz and Paul ''A Dictionary of Color'' New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 207; Color Sample of Zaffer: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample D11</ref>

==See also== * List of colors

==References== {{reflist}} {{Shades of blue}}

Category:Inorganic pigments Category:Shades of blue