The Yellow Pigment Called Pink

We may never know for a certain why the English word pink was once used as a noun to describe a yellow pigment. However, we may arrive at some conclusions to make it clearer.

That the English word pink did not represent the raw material providing the coloring matter is clear from manuscripts on painting. Norgate had a recipe for making it from Genestella tinctoria, a variety of broom and additional recipes in one of the copies of Norgate's treatise include the remark that 'callsind eg shels and whitt Roses makes rare pinck that never starves.'

It did not represent the hue yellow, because it is always accompanied with a qualifying adjective, many of which describe its hue. Yellow, green and light pink are 17th century variations, whereas the names brown, rose, Dutch and English pink were used somewhat later.

The common feature of all the pigments described by those names is that all were obtain from a dye that was precipitated onto chalk or alum.