Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.17622

    Colour circle

    Date
    1861
    Creator
    Michel Eugene Chevreul (1786 - 1889, French) , Chemist
    Object type
    Library reference
    33074
    Material
    Technique
    Subject
    Description
    A 72-part colour circle whose radii, in addition to the three primates of red, yellow and blue, depict three secondary mixtures of orange, green and violet, as well as six further secondary mixtures.

    Figure 6 from Michel Eugene Chevreul’s Expose d'un moyen de definier et de nommer les coleurs d'apres unem ethode precise et experimentale… [Presenting a way to define and name the colours according to a precise and experimental method…]

    This is the first colour circle of a series of ten, diagramming the variations in colour obtained by the progressive addition of black to the basic colours of red, yellow and blue. Overall, this series shows nearly 15,000 different shades of colour. Chevreul’s was one of the first colour systems to accommodate variance of tone and brightness in this way.

    Michel Eugene Chevreul (1786-1889) French chemist was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1826.
    Associated place
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          > France
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