Скачать или смотреть How Prussian Blue Was Accidentally Discovered in 1706 Berlin

Prussian Blue, also known as Berliner Blau or Preussisch Blau, emerged from Berlin pigment making in the early eighteenth century. The discovery is commonly credited to Johann Jacob Diesbach, whose unexpected blue appeared during work on a red lake. The earliest clear documentation dates to 1708, in a letter from the naturalist Johann Leonhard Frisch to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, describing the new blue. According to certain accounts, potash used in the workshop had been contaminated by substances derived from animal blood, producing ferrocyanide compounds that, when combined with iron salts, generated the deep blue. Some historians suggest the experiments took place in or near the laboratory of the alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel, though the exact circumstances remain debated. What is clear is that the recipe rapidly attracted interest and production began in German and French centres soon after.

As the first modern synthetic pigment, Prussian Blue offered artists an affordable, high tinting strength alternative to costly natural ultramarine. It spread across eighteenth century European art, appeared in printed textiles, and later reached Japan where it transformed the palette of ukiyo e artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige. In science and industry it enabled the blueprint and cyanotype processes, formalised by John Herschel in 1842, which fixed images as stable Prussian Blue prints. Chemically a ferric ferrocyanide, the pigment is considered safe because the cyanide is strongly bound. Its versatility even extends to medicine, where ferric hexacyanoferrate is used to treat thallium and radiocaesium poisoning. Prussian Blue remains a landmark in the history of colour, chemistry, and global visual culture.

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Keywords:
Prussian Blue, Johann Jacob Diesbach, Berlin 1706, Johann Conrad Dippel, cochineal lake, ferrocyanide pigment, ferric ferrocyanide, Berliner Blau, cyanotype 1842, John Herschel, Hokusai, The Great Wave, blueprint process, pigment history, European art 18th century, thallium antidote, radiocaesium treatment, pigment discovery, German alchemy, Leibniz correspondence

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