#16 - A Bug of Another Color

We investigate the most fantastic bugs of all, kermes and cochineal. These little creatures not only gave us many of our words for red but also famous symbols from British redcoats to the U.S. flag.  

 Sources 

  

Brigitte Buettner. The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture. 1st edition. University Park, Pennsylvania: Penn State University Press, 2022.

Gale, Owen-Crocker, Elizabeth Coatsworth, Maria Hayward, and John Munro. “Kermes.” In Encyclopedia of Medieval Dress and Textiles of the British Isles, Illustrated edition. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2012.

Greenfield, Amy Butler. A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire. Reprint edition. HarperCollins e-books, 2008.

Munro, John H. “The Medieval Scarlet and the Economics of Sartorial Splendour.” In Cloth and Clothing in Medieval Europe: Essays in Memory of Professor E.M. Carus-Wilson, 2:13–70. London, 1983.

Phipps, Elena. Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2010.

Donkin, R. A. “Spanish Red: An Ethnogeographical Study of Cochineal and the Opuntia Cactus.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 67, no. 5 (1977): 1–84. https://doi.org/10.2307/1006195.