2902 Purple Colour 



Osburn notices the city of Tyre, and he gives a portrait of one of its 

 inhabitants from a painting in the tomb of Ramses Meiamoun, 

 of which, as he informs us, the colours in the original are perfectly 

 preserved. This Tynan, from the circumstance of his being made to 

 represent his highly celebrated city, is doubtless arrayed in the most 

 splendid chess, and is intended, in all likelihood, to typify a person- 

 age of no common importance. Speaking of the woollen mantle and 

 tunic which he wears in the painting, the author says, "Their colours 

 seem to set at rest the difficult question as to the tint denoted by the 

 Tyrian dye. They are both purple and scarlet ; and are so made, that 

 one half of the person is clothed in the one colour, and the other half 

 in the other. Both colours are extremely vivid, as the Greek and 

 Latin authors uniformly represent them to have been;" (p. 115). It 

 is to be presumed that the colours on Mr. Osburn 1 s plate are an exact, 

 and, indeed, an identical representation of those in the original paint- 

 ing in the tomb. And yet, if this is the case, the matter appears to be 

 altogether inexplicable ; for it is to be observed that although, as is 

 said in the text, the one half of ihese Tyrian garments is undoubtedly 

 scarlet, it is not less true that the other half is not purple, as expressly 

 declared by our author, but is a vivid and most decided blue, 

 approaching in clearness and intensity to ultramarine itself. Mr. 

 Osburn, moreover, remarks that this gorgeous dress agrees perfectly 

 with the refinement and luxury which all the classical authorities as- 

 cribe to the Tyrians, and which are so vividly described by the pro- 

 phet Ezekiel, (p. 116). And one of the passages which he gives from 

 that prophet in confirmation of what he is saying is the following, 

 " these were thy merchants in all sorts of things, in blue clothes and 

 broidered work ;" (Ezek. ch. 27, v. 24). Now, it humbly appears to 

 me that this verse is a remarkable and most unsuspicious testimony to 

 the accuracy of the prophet, inasmuch as it coincides so entirely with 

 one of the colours in this most ancient, undoubted, and unlooked for 

 painting of those cloths, which were held in the greatest estimation at 

 Tyre, but that, the colours of these cloths being represented by Mr. 

 Osburn as purple and scarlet and not blue and scarlet, it is calculated 

 with no less certainty not to confirm, but materially to weaken his re- 

 presentation. T am, therefore, unable to see in what manner the 

 painting of which we are speaking, can possibly be said to set at rest 

 the difficult question as to the tint denoted by the Tyrian dye, that is, 

 as I understand the words, the royal tint of purple. Nor is this all. 

 On the scarlet half of the mantle worn by this Tyrian representative 

 • of his city, there is a number of circular spots of a dull purplish black. 



