Historically fatal toxicity
Contains arsenic; widely documented 19th-century cases of illness and death linked to wallpaper, clothing dye and paint made with these pigments.
Banned or heavily restricted for consumer use in most countries. Historical wallpaper/textile samples should be handled with appropriate care.
- Source material
- Copper arsenite compounds
- Geography
- Developed and widely used in Europe
- Earliest documented use
- Scheele's Green, 1770s; Paris Green (Emerald Green), early 19th century
- Cost & availability
- Prized for its vividness relative to earlier green pigments, and widely adopted commercially.
- Production (historical summary)
- Synthesised from copper and arsenic compounds.
- Stability & lightfastness
- Vivid and reasonably stable chemically, which contributed to its widespread commercial use. (good)
- Replacement / obsolescence
- Phased out through the late 19th and early 20th centuries as the health hazards became widely documented and non-arsenic greens became available.