Zaffre

{{Short description|Deep blue pigment}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2021}}

{{infobox color

|title=Zaffre (Zaffer)

|hex=0014A8

|source=X11

|isccname=Deep blue

}}

Zaffre (also spelt Zaffer in American English, see spelling differences), a prescientific, or alchemical substance, is a deep blue pigment obtained by roasting cobalt ore, and is made of either an impure form of cobalt oxide[http://www.potters.org/subject74249.htm ClayArt] or impure cobalt arsenate. During the Victorian Era, zaffre was used to prepare smalt and to stain glass blue.Mackenzie's Five Thousand Receipts in All the Useful and Domestic Arts , 1845, "Pottery: Black glazing p 369.

The first recorded use of zaffer as a color name in English was sometime in the 1550s (exact year uncertain).Maerz and Paul A Dictionary of Color New York:1930 McGraw-Hill Page 207; Color Sample of Zaffer: Page 109 Plate 43 Color Sample D11