Prussian Blue: Invented in Berlin in 1704, Arrived in Japan in 1820, and Why DeckArts Ships from the Same City

Last updated: May 2026 · By Stanislav Arnautov · Berlin

Prussian blue (ferric ferrocyanide, Fe₄[Fe(CN)₆]₃) is the first synthetic inorganic pigment in Western art history and the most geographically peripatetic single chemical compound in the history of art materials: invented in Berlin in 1704, it reached Stockholm and Paris within years, London within decades, Japan via the Dutch East India Company by approximately 1820, and is still produced commercially in Berlin — the city where DeckArts ships its Canadian maple prints of Van Gogh’s Starry Night (Prussian blue sky), Hokusai’s Great Wave (Prussian blue dominant), and Van Gogh’s Almond Blossom (Prussian blue flat sky). The material history of a single pigment connects Berlin to Japan to Provence and back to Berlin across 322 years. External reference: National Gallery London — Prussian Blue Scientific Research.

The Invention: Berlin, 1704, an Accident

Prussian blue was discovered accidentally in Berlin in approximately 1704 by Johann Jacob Diesbach (1670–1738), a paint-maker and colour merchant. The specific circumstances of the discovery are documented in a 1710 letter from the chemist Johann Conrad Dippel (1673–1734) to the German mathematician and polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz — the earliest known written account of the pigment’s discovery.

According to Dippel’s account, Diesbach was attempting to make a red cochineal pigment (a warm red derived from dried insects — a standard and expensive pigment in early 18th-century European painting) using potash (potassium carbonate, K₂CO₃) as a flux. The potash that Diesbach used was contaminated — it had been recycled from animal waste (blood and other organic materials) that Dippel had been using in his own alchemical experiments to produce “animal oil” (Dippel’s Oil, a chemical product used in medicine). The contaminated potash contained iron compounds from the organic waste.

When Diesbach combined the contaminated potash with iron sulphate (FeSO₄) and the cochineal red precipitate, the reaction produced not the expected red but a deep, brilliant blue precipitate — the first synthesis of ferric ferrocyanide, the compound that became Prussian blue. The accident of contamination produced the most important pigment innovation in Western art history’s first 1,700 years.

The name “Prussian blue”: the pigment was first sold commercially in Berlin under the name “Berliner Blau” (Berlin Blue) by Diesbach and his collaborators. The name “Prussian blue” appears in English sources by approximately 1710–1720, derived from the association with the Kingdom of Prussia (the dominant German state of the period, whose capital was Berlin). The Japanese name — Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍) — is a phonetic transliteration of “Berlin ai” (“Berlin blue”). In the Japanese name for the pigment, Berlin is literally present: the city’s name in the colour’s Japanese name.

The Chemistry: Ferric Ferrocyanide and Its Optical Properties

Prussian blue’s chemical structure: ferric ferrocyanide, formal composition Fe₄[Fe(CN)₆]₃ · xH₂O (x = variable water molecules), more precisely described as iron(III) hexacyanoferrate(II). The crystal structure consists of a cubic lattice of alternating iron(III) and iron(II) ions connected by cyanide bridges (CN⁻ ligands). The deep blue colour arises from an intervalence charge transfer — the transfer of an electron between the iron(II) and iron(III) ions through the cyanide bridge, which absorbs energy in the red-orange portion of the visible spectrum (approximately 680–720 nm) and reflects the blue portion (approximately 420–520 nm).

The peak reflectance of Prussian blue: approximately 495–500 nm, in the cool blue sector of the visible spectrum. This peak corresponds to a deep, slightly desaturated cool blue — richer and more luminous than azurite (the previously dominant blue pigment in European painting), more intense than smalt (cobalt glass), and with a specific cool-warm character that is intermediate between the warmth of cobalt blue and the coolness of ultramarine.

The optical property that makes Prussian blue so specifically effective in the works where it dominates: at ~495–500 nm, Prussian blue is spectrally opposite to chrome yellow (~570–580 nm) and cadmium orange (~590–610 nm). The warm-cool complementary pair of Prussian blue + chrome yellow is the most chromatically active complementary pair in the classical art range — the pair that produces the maximum simultaneous contrast (Chevreul’s law) under warm directed light. This is the specific pair that Van Gogh exploited in the Starry Night (Prussian blue sky + chrome yellow stars), the Sunflowers (Prussian blue ground + chrome yellow petals), and the Almond Blossom (Prussian blue sky + warm white blossoms).

The Global Spread: From Berlin to Japan in 116 Years

The global spread of Prussian blue from its 1704 Berlin discovery to its 1820 arrival in Japan is one of the most specific material-historical stories in art history:

1704 — Berlin: Diesbach discovers the pigment accidentally. Dippel’s 1710 letter to Leibniz is the first documentary record.

1704–1710 — Secrecy and commercial production: Diesbach and his associates kept the production method secret for several years while establishing commercial production in Berlin. The pigment was sold as a luxury colour at high prices during this period.

1710–1724 — European diffusion: The formula was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society (London) in 1724 by John Woodward, who had received the formula through a chain of correspondence. Once published, the formula was immediately reproduced by pigment manufacturers across Europe. By the 1730s, Prussian blue was commercially available from Berlin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Venice manufacturers.

1730s–1800s — Western art adoption: Prussian blue rapidly replaced azurite as the standard affordable blue pigment in European painting. It was used by Antoine Watteau, Joshua Reynolds, John Constable, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, and virtually every major European painter of the 18th and early 19th centuries.

c.1820 — Japan via the Dutch East India Company: The Dutch East India Company (VOC) was the only European trading company permitted to trade with Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868). The VOC’s trading post on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbour was the single point of European material entry into Japan for approximately 200 years. Prussian blue arrived in Japan via the VOC through Dejima at approximately 1820 — 116 years after its invention in Berlin.

c.1820–1831 — Japanese adoption: Japanese woodblock print artists rapidly adopted Prussian blue to replace their traditional indigo-based blues (beni-ai and ai-some), which were less saturated, less stable, and more expensive than the new European synthetic blue. Katsushika Hokusai adopted Prussian blue as the dominant colour of his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series (c.1830–1832), including the Great Wave (c.1831).

Japan: Berorin-Ai and the Ukiyo-e Revolution

The arrival of Prussian blue in Japan transformed the ukiyo-e woodblock print tradition in a specific and visually dramatic way. The traditional Japanese woodblock print blues — indigo-based ai (derived from Polygonum tinctorium or other indigo plants) and beni-ai (a mixture of safflower red and indigo) — produced duller, less saturated, and less stable blues than Prussian blue. The specific deep saturation of Prussian blue at ~495–500 nm was immediately recognisable as qualitatively different from the indigo blues that preceded it.

The Japanese name Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍) literally means “Berlin blue” (ベロリン = Berlin; 藍 = ai = blue dye/indigo). The name acknowledges the European origin of the pigment while integrating it into the Japanese colour vocabulary (ai = the term for Japanese indigo blue, the traditional pre-Prussian blue standard). The new Berlin-derived blue was named in the existing Japanese colour vocabulary as a more powerful version of the traditional blue.

The two most celebrated ukiyo-e artists to adopt Prussian blue most extensively were Katsushika Hokusai (c.1760–1849) and Utagawa Hiroshige (1797–1858). Hokusai’s Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series is visually dominated by Prussian blue from its opening plate (the Great Wave, c.1831) through the entire 46-plate series. Hiroshige’s One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856–1858) and his Fifty-Three Stations of the Tōkaidō (1833–1834) use Prussian blue as the dominant atmospheric colour throughout. The work that Van Gogh specifically referenced when making Almond Blossom — “the Japanese woodblock I have” in Letter 854 — was almost certainly a Hiroshige work from one of these series.

Van Gogh and Prussian Blue: Three Major Works

Vincent van Gogh’s use of Prussian blue is one of the most extensively documented pigment uses in the history of art scholarship. Technical analyses of multiple Van Gogh works have confirmed Prussian blue as a primary pigment, and Van Gogh himself discussed his colour choices in detail in his letters. The three most significant Van Gogh works in the DeckArts range that use Prussian blue:

Starry Night (June 1889, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam): The dominant blue of the sky, the swirling dark tones, and the village rooftops are Prussian blue. The chrome yellow stars advance from the Prussian blue sky at maximum warm-cool complementary contrast. Van Gogh wrote about the Starry Night’s colour in his letters to Theo and to Emile Bernard, describing the night as “blue-violet” — the specific character of Prussian blue at his palette’s mixing proportions. The complete Van Gogh letters covering the Starry Night are at vangoghletters.org. See: Van Gogh Starry Night: Complete Guide.

Sunflowers (August 1888, National Gallery London): The background of the canonical Arles Sunflowers vase paintings is Prussian blue — the specific cool ground from which the chrome yellow petals advance at maximum simultaneous contrast. Van Gogh chose Prussian blue as the background specifically for its complementary relationship with chrome yellow. The National Gallery London holds the most celebrated version. See: Van Gogh Sunflowers: Complete Guide.

Almond Blossom (February 1890, Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam): The flat Prussian blue sky is the most specifically Japanese use of Prussian blue in Van Gogh’s work. Van Gogh explicitly referenced a Japanese woodblock print (a Hiroshige work) when describing his intention for the painting. The flat blue — no atmospheric gradation, no spatial depth, no modelling — is the Japanese woodblock print convention applied to oil on canvas. The same Berlin pigment that reached Japan via the Dutch East India Company in 1820, adopted by Hiroshige in the 1830s, referenced by Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy in 1890, and reproduced in Berlin by DeckArts in 2026. See: Van Gogh Almond Blossom: Complete Guide.

Optical Properties: Why Prussian Blue Is Unique

Prussian blue has three specific optical properties that distinguish it from all other blue pigments available to artists in the 18th–20th centuries:

1. Saturation and stability under UV light. Unlike organic blue pigments (indigo, smalt, azurite, natural ultramarine from lapis lazuli), Prussian blue does not fade under UV light exposure. It is stable under normal interior lighting conditions for decades. This stability made it the preferred blue pigment for works intended for long-term display — a specific advantage that Van Gogh, who was acutely concerned with the lightfastness of his pigments (as documented in multiple letters), explicitly valued.

2. Warm-cool intermediate character. At ~495–500 nm, Prussian blue sits between the warmth of cobalt blue (~470–480 nm, a slightly warmer blue) and the coolness of synthetic ultramarine (~480–490 nm, a slightly cooler blue). This intermediate warm-cool character gives Prussian blue a specific atmospheric quality that makes it ideal for sky depiction: it reads as the specific cool-but-not-icy quality of a deep blue sky or a deep ocean.

3. Specific complementary relationship with chrome yellow. The Prussian blue + chrome yellow complementary pair is one of the most specific warm-cool complementary pairs in the visual spectrum. The approximately 75–85 nm distance between Prussian blue’s peak reflectance (~495–500 nm) and chrome yellow’s peak reflectance (~570–580 nm) places them in strong (but not exact) complementary opposition. This specific opposition is what makes the Starry Night’s stars glow, the Sunflowers’ petals radiate, and the Great Wave’s foam advance — the warm chromatic events appear to emit light from the cool Prussian blue ground.

Prussian Blue in Western Art: A Timeline

DeckArts and the Berlin Pigment: A Material Circle

DeckArts ships its UV archival reproductions of Prussian-blue-dominant works from Berlin — the city where Prussian blue was accidentally invented 322 years ago. The material circle is specific and complete:

Berlin 1704: Johann Jacob Diesbach invents Prussian blue by accident. The pigment is named Berliner Blau (Berlin Blue).

Japan c.1820: Prussian blue arrives in Japan via the Dutch East India Company. The Japanese name it Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍) — Berlin blue. The city’s name is embedded in the Japanese colour vocabulary.

Japan c.1831: Hokusai uses Prussian blue as the dominant colour of the Great Wave — the most reproduced Japanese image in history.

Japan c.1856–1858: Hiroshige uses Prussian blue in his One Hundred Famous Views of Edo and other series. Van Gogh collects Hiroshige prints in Paris and Antwerp.

Arles and Saint-Rémy 1888–1890: Van Gogh uses Prussian blue in the Sunflowers, the Starry Night, and the Almond Blossom — citing Japanese prints as a direct influence.

Berlin 2026: DeckArts reproduces the Great Wave (Prussian blue, c.1831), the Starry Night (Prussian blue, 1889), the Almond Blossom (Prussian blue, 1890), and the Sunflowers (Prussian blue, 1888) on Canadian maple with UV archival inks, shipping from Berlin — the city where the pigment in all four works was invented. The Berlin pigment returns to Berlin 322 years after its invention.

This material circle is the most specific biographical argument for DeckArts’ location in Berlin: the city’s role in the art history of the works it reproduces is not coincidental but specific, documented, and chemically verifiable. When you buy a DeckArts Great Wave or Starry Night or Almond Blossom, you are buying a work whose dominant colour was born in the city that ships it to you. See: Hokusai Great Wave: The Berlin Pigment, 30,000 Works; Van Gogh Starry Night: Prussian Blue from Berlin.

The Berlin Pigment — DeckArts from ~$140

Prussian blue invented Berlin 1704 · Japan c.1820 · Hokusai Great Wave c.1831 · Van Gogh Starry Night 1889 · ships from Berlin 2026

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FAQ

Who invented Prussian blue and when?

Johann Jacob Diesbach (1670–1738), a paint-maker and colour merchant in Berlin, accidentally discovered Prussian blue in approximately 1704 while attempting to make a red cochineal pigment using contaminated potash. The earliest documentary record is a 1710 letter from Johann Conrad Dippel to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The pigment was first named Berliner Blau (Berlin Blue); the name Prussian blue appears in English sources by approximately 1710–1720. It is the first synthetic inorganic pigment in Western art history. National Gallery London scientific research. DeckArts from ~$140.

How did Prussian blue reach Japan?

Via the Dutch East India Company (VOC) through the trading post on the island of Dejima in Nagasaki harbour — the only European point of entry into Japan during the Edo period (1603–1868). Prussian blue arrived in Japan at approximately 1820, 116 years after its invention in Berlin. The Japanese name — Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍) — is a phonetic transliteration of “Berlin ai” (“Berlin blue”). Hokusai adopted Prussian blue as the dominant colour of his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji series c.1830–1832, including the Great Wave (c.1831). DeckArts from ~$140.

What paintings use Prussian blue?

Major works in the DeckArts range that use Prussian blue as a primary pigment: Hokusai Great Wave c.1831 (dominant blue throughout); Van Gogh Starry Night 1889 (sky, dominant blue, confirmed by technical analysis); Van Gogh Sunflowers 1888 (background ground, confirmed); Van Gogh Almond Blossom 1890 (flat sky, Japanese flat-colour convention, Van Gogh referenced Hiroshige in letters). In the broader art history tradition: virtually all major European painters from the 1730s onward; numerous ukiyo-e woodblock artists from c.1820 onward. National Gallery London. DeckArts from ~$140.

Related Guides

• Hokusai Great Wave: The Berlin Pigment, 30,000 Works, Every Room
• Van Gogh Starry Night: The Asylum Window, Prussian Blue from Berlin
• Van Gogh Almond Blossom: The Only Canonical Nursery Gift
• Van Gogh Sunflowers: Chrome Yellow from Prussian Blue from Navy
• Japandi Wall Art Ideas 2026: The One-Accent Rule

Article Summary

Prussian blue history: ferric ferrocyanide Fe₄[Fe(CN)₆]₃ · xH₂O; first synthetic inorganic pigment Western art history. Invention: Johann Jacob Diesbach Berlin c.1704 (1670–1738, paint-maker and colour merchant); accidental (attempted red cochineal pigment using contaminated potash recycled from Dippel’s animal oil experiments; iron compounds in contaminated potash reacted with iron sulphate and cochineal precipitate producing deep blue ferric ferrocyanide instead of red); 1710 letter from Dippel to Leibniz = earliest documentary record. Name: Berliner Blau (Berlin Blue) first commercial sale; Prussian blue in English sources c.1710–1720; Japanese Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍) = phonetic transliteration of “Berlin ai” (“Berlin blue”) = city of invention embedded in Japanese colour vocabulary. Chemistry: ferric ferrocyanide, intervalence charge transfer between Fe(III) and Fe(II) through CN⁻ bridge; absorbs red-orange ~680–720 nm; reflects blue ~420–520 nm; peak reflectance ~495–500 nm cool blue, intermediate warm-cool between cobalt (~470–480 nm warmer) and ultramarine (~480–490 nm cooler). Global spread: secrecy 1704–1710; formula published Philosophical Transactions Royal Society London 1724 (John Woodward); commercial manufacturers Berlin/London/Paris/Amsterdam/Venice by 1730s; European art adoption replaces azurite (Watteau/Reynolds/Constable/Hogarth/Gainsborough); VOC Dejima Nagasaki c.1820 (116 years after Berlin invention); rapid Japanese adoption by ukiyo-e artists. Japan/ukiyo-e: Berorin-ai (ベロリン藍 = Berlin blue); replaces indigo-based ai (less saturated, less stable, more expensive); Hokusai (Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji c.1830–1832, 46 plates Prussian blue dominant from Great Wave Plate 1); Hiroshige (One Hundred Famous Views of Edo 1856–1858, Fifty-Three Stations Tōkaidō 1833–1834; specific Hiroshige works in Van Gogh’s collection). Van Gogh: Starry Night June 1889 (sky dominant Prussian blue, chrome yellow stars from Prussian blue = maximum complementary contrast; letters to Theo + Bernard); Sunflowers August 1888 (background Prussian blue ground for chrome yellow petals; National Gallery London); Almond Blossom February 1890 (flat Prussian blue sky Japanese woodblock convention; Letter 854 references “the Japanese woodblock I have” = Hiroshige; most specifically Japanese Van Gogh use). Optical properties: UV stable (unlike organic blues — indigo/smalt/azurite/natural ultramarine); warm-cool intermediate ~495–500 nm (specific atmospheric quality ideal for sky); complementary pair with chrome yellow ~570–580 nm (~75–85 nm distance = strong near-complementary opposition = maximum simultaneous contrast = self-luminous warm advance from cool ground). Timeline table: Diesbach 1704 → Royal Society 1724 → European painters 1730s–1780s → Japan VOC c.1820 → Hokusai c.1831 → Hiroshige 1833–1858 → Van Gogh 1888–1890 → DeckArts Berlin 2026. Material circle: Berlin 1704 (invention, Berliner Blau) → Japan c.1820 (Berorin-ai, Berlin embedded in Japanese name) → Hokusai 1831 (Great Wave) → Hiroshige 1856–1858 (Van Gogh’s collection) → Van Gogh 1888–1890 (Sunflowers/Starry Night/Almond Blossom) → DeckArts Berlin 2026 (UV archival reproductions all Prussian-blue-dominant works shipped from city of invention). National Gallery London Prussian blue scientific research. DeckArts from ~$140. Canadian maple. UV archival 100+ years. Berlin. 30-day return.

About the Author

Stanislav Arnautov is the founder of DeckArts and a creative director from Ukraine based in Berlin.