pigment · ferric ferrocyanide, accidental 1706
a blue so dark it is almost the absence of any colour at all, and yet it
is unmistakably blue. the colour of a draughtsman's plan. the colour of
the sea photographed at midnight with the lens left open too long.
prussian came into the world by accident, in a laboratory, the year a
careless chemist contaminated a batch. it has the chill of a thing made
by hand and then handed down. you find it on the spines of old maps —
atlas still wears some of it — and on the inside of a sextant case in
the lighthouse.
paired most often with indigo as twins; mistaken for it constantly.