Victorian Colors by Rachel Perls

Guest blogger, Rachel Perls is back! She’s a color consultant who writes about the subject on her own blog, HUE. Be sure to add her wisdom to your RSS feed. Today she’s filling us in on Victorian color palettes.

Why do people always associate Victorian palettes with dark, muted or murky tones? This stereotype has to be cleared up! I think this misconception stems from the image of heavy, layered curtains, dark wood furniture, and the soft yellow glow of lamp lighting.

Additionally, when restorers analyzed paint samples, they often neglected to take into consideration stains from oil and gas lamps, pollution from coal stoves, or bleaching from the sun.

In reality, the Victorian paint palette was similar to the strong vibrant tones of the Regency period of the late eighteenth century.

During the early years of the Victorian era, predominantly light colors were used. An English drawing room in 1830 was described as “paneled with watered silk of pearl or white, or light tints of pink or lavender.”

While off-white was often used for ceilings, by the 1850′s, even modest households were embracing the use of rich colors. Why, even crown moldings were painted an alternating mixture of colors. A typical color scheme would include a mahogany wood grained door (often a decorative finish mimicking mahogany or another type of expensive wood applied to pine), hunter-green dado panels, grained or purple brown dado rail, lilac walls, and a light blue-green or pale salmon ceiling.

With the introduction of electricity, came the increased usage of white painted woodwork. Suddenly, the soft glow of lamp lighting was gone, and under the harsh glare of electric bulbs, faded or discolored elements were brought into focus, and many colors were thrown out of balance. (That’s why it’s so important to select colors for your home under the same lighting conditions that you’ll be using in the designated space).

By the second half of the century, a movement called The Aesthetic Style emerged. Also called the Arts and Crafts Movement, it rejected extreme ornamentation in place of more somber colors, like olive green, and mustard yellow. It eschewed all the ruffles, heavy drapery panels and endless doodads.

Are there any historical periods that you particularly love for the color palettes and design aesthetics of the time?