Russet (color)

Russet is a dark brown color with a reddish-orange tinge. As a tertiary color, russet is an equal mix of orange and purple pigments. The first recorded use of russet as a color name in English was in 1562.^[2]

The source of this color is The ISCC-NBS Method of Designating Colors and a Dictionary of Color Names (1955) used by stamp collectors to identify the colors of stamps.^[3] However, it is widely considered hard to standardize, and the same vary name could be applied to various tones; russet often has no more specific meaning than ruddy or reddish.^[2]

The name of this color derives from russet, a coarse cloth made of wool and dyed with woad and madder to give it a subdued grey or reddish-brown shade. By the statute of 1363, poor English people were required to wear russet.^[4][5]

Russet, a color of autumn, is often associated with sorrow or grave seriousness. Anticipating a lifetime of regret, Shakespeare's character Biron says in Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2: "Henceforth my wooing mind shall be express'd / In russet yeas and honest kersey noes."

Russet is mentioned in a famous quote taken from a letter Oliver Cromwell wrote to Sir William Spring in September 1643: "I had rather have a plain, russet-coated captain that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, [than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else]".^[6][5]