Kassia St Clair’s The Secret Lives of Colour is a charming collection of anecdotes on the development of colours, bringing together such obscure shades as isabelline and orpiment in a series of ...

Isabelline. If true, this color's origin story has to be the most off-putting in history. Once used to describe the pale champagne color of certain horse coats and bird feathers, ...

The main categories: white, yellow, orange, pink, red, purple, blue, green, brown and black are subdivided into shades and tints – including unusual ones such as madder, gamboge and Isabelline.