Ī shortened form of carmesinus also gave the Latin carminus, from which comes carmine. The ultimate source may be Sanskrit कृमिज kṛmi-jā meaning "worm-made". German Karmesin, Italian cremisi, French cramoisi, Portuguese carmesim, Dutch “karmozijn”, etc. These were adapted via Old Spanish from the Medieval Latin cremesinus (also kermesinus or carmesinus), the dye produced from Kermes scale insects, and can be traced back to Arabic qirmiz ("red"), also borrowed in Turkic languages kırmız' and many other languages, e.g. The word crimson has been recorded in English since 1400, and its earlier forms include cremesin, crymysyn and cramoysin (cf. Alizarin crimson is a dye bonded onto alum which is then used as a pigment and mixed with ochre, sienna and umber. The pigment is also called cochineal after the insect from which it is made.Īlizarin (PR83) is a pigment that was first synthesized in 1868 by the German chemists Carl Gräbe and Carl Liebermann and replaced the natural pigment madder lake. It was first described by Pietro Andrea Mattioli in 1549. Cochineal appears to have been brought to Europe during the conquest of Mexico by the Spaniard Hernán Cortés, and the name 'carmine' is derived from the French carmin. They fell out of use with the introduction of cochineal, also made from scale insects, because although the dyes were comparable in quality and color intensity, it needed ten to twelve times as much kermes to produce the same effect as cochineal.Ĭarmine is the name given to the dye made from the dried bodies of the female cochineal, although the name crimson is sometimes applied to these dyes too. Kermes dyes have been found in burial wrappings in Anglo-Scandinavian York. Crimson (NR4) is produced using the dried bodies of a scale insect, Kermes, which were gathered commercially in Mediterranean countries, where they live on the kermes oak, and sold throughout Europe.