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[[Image:神奈川沖浪裏.jpg|right|thumb|300px|''Under the Wave at Kanagawa'', one of the most famous images in all of Japanese art; it makes extensive use of Prussian blue."]]

[[File:Kanagawa-wave.jpg|right|thumb|300px|''Under the Wave at Kanagawa'', one of the most famous images in all of Japanese art; it makes extensive use of Prussian blue."]]

Prussian blue, also known as Berlin blue, is considered the world's first artificial (chemical) pigment; that is to say, it is a paint or printing ink not made directly from plant, mineral, or other natural materials. The pigment is used in some of the most iconic and famous ''[[ukiyo-e]]'' woodblock prints, including the "Great Wave Off Kanagawa" and many others by [[Hokusai]] and [[Hiroshige]]. Prussian blue was highly prized in Japan as a blue pigment which, unlike [[dayflower blue]] and many other vegetable pigments, did not fade or discolor when exposed to light or moisture.

Prussian blue, also known as Berlin blue, is considered the world's first artificial (chemical) pigment; that is to say, it is a paint or printing ink not made directly from plant, mineral, or other natural materials. The pigment is used in some of the most iconic and famous ''[[ukiyo-e]]'' woodblock prints, including the "Great Wave Off Kanagawa" and many others by [[Hokusai]] and [[Hiroshige]]. Prussian blue was highly prized in Japan as a blue pigment which, unlike [[dayflower blue]] and many other vegetable pigments, did not fade or discolor when exposed to light or moisture.

Developed in Germany in the early 18th century, Prussian blue appears in a series of maps known as ''[[magiri-zu]]'' produced in [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû]] in [[1737]] to [[1750]];<ref>Gallery labels, ''Ryukyu/Okinawa no chizu ten'', Okinawa Prefectural Museum, Feb 2017.</ref> these maps might represent the earliest use of the pigment in the (greater) Japanese archipelago.

The pigment was first invented by Johann Konrad Dippel and Johann Jacob Diesbach in the laboratory they shared in Berlin, sometime between [[1704]] and [[1707]]. Diesbach, a color-maker who was trying to synthesize a red dye from [[cochineal]], borrowed [[potash]] which Dippel had been using to extract oils from animal blood, and through some fortuitous accident in the process, the iron in the animal blood reacted with the potash and other materials in such a way that it created a blue substance which the two determined could function well as a dye or pigment. They began marketing their "Prussian blue" or "Berlin blue" soon afterwards, but kept the formula a secret until the Englishman John Woodward published a description of the procedure for producing it in the ''Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society'' in [[1724]].<ref name=chen101>Buyun Chen, "The Craft of Color and the Chemistry of Dyes: Textile Technology in the Ryukyu Kingdom, 1700–1900," ''Technology and Culture'' 63:1 (January 2022), 101-102.</ref>

 

For much of the first half of the 18th century, European chemists, dyers, and the like struggled to figure out how to make the substance easier to mass produce, and how to make it more effective in dyeing certain materials, such as cotton. French chemist Pierre-Joseph Macquer made one significant advance in [[1749]] when he discovered that using [[alum]] to mordant the cotton - weakening it slightly to make it less resistant to dyestuffs - was a successful technique.<ref name=chen101/>

 

Perhaps the earliest use of Prussian blue in the (greater) Japanese archipelago is evident in a series of maps known as ''[[magiri-zu]]'' produced in the [[Ryukyu Kingdom|Ryûkyû Kingdom]] in [[1737]] to [[1750]].<ref>Gallery labels, ''Ryukyu/Okinawa no chizu ten'', Okinawa Prefectural Museum, Feb 2017.</ref>

Prussian blue was not widely used in mainland Japan until the 1830s, however, with a series of fan prints by [[Keisai Eisen]] from [[1829]] being perhaps the first to be printed entirely in Prussian blue (as ''[[ai-e]]'', or "blue pictures") without any other colors.<ref>"[http://shunga.honolulumuseum.org/2013/index.php?page=125&language=&maxImageHeight=470&headerTop=0&headerHeight=109&footerTop=579&bw=1366&sh=0&refreshed=refreshed#.VH1YvsmTLqM Tongue in Cheek: Erotic Art in 19th-Century Japan]," Honolulu Museum of Art, exhibition website, accessed 1 Dec 2014.</ref> Many of the most famous ''ukiyo-e'' images employing Prussian blue - such as Hokusai's "Great Wave," are from the 1830s.

Prussian blue was not widely used in mainland Japan until the 1830s, however, with a series of fan prints by [[Keisai Eisen]] from [[1829]] being perhaps the first to be printed entirely in Prussian blue (as ''[[ai-e]]'', or "blue pictures") without any other colors.<ref>"[http://shunga.honolulumuseum.org/2013/index.php?page=125&language=&maxImageHeight=470&headerTop=0&headerHeight=109&footerTop=579&bw=1366&sh=0&refreshed=refreshed#.VH1YvsmTLqM Tongue in Cheek: Erotic Art in 19th-Century Japan]," Honolulu Museum of Art, exhibition website, accessed 1 Dec 2014.</ref> Many of the most famous ''ukiyo-e'' images employing Prussian blue - such as Hokusai's "Great Wave," are from the 1830s.