Johann Jacob Diesbach () (born around 1670 – died in 1748), was a German

pigment A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored sub ...

and dye producer known for first synthesizing a blue pigment known as Prussian blue (i.e. iron blue or

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

blue).

Biography

Diesbach was born into a family from the Palatinate, and arrived in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

around 1701. Between 1704 and 1706, Diesbach was working as a paint manufacturer in Berlin. He was using an extract of crushed cochineal insects, iron sulphate and potash to create

cochineal The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessility (motility), sessile parasitism, parasite native to tropical and subtropical Sout ...

red

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

. One batch of the product unexpectedly turned pale pink. When he tried to concentrate the mixture, it turned purple, then deep blue. He sought out the seller of the potash, Johann Konrad Dippel, an alchemist. Together, they realized that the reaction had occurred because the potash had been contaminated with bone oil. Neither Diesbach nor Dippel knew what exactly happened chemically, they had inadvertently created the first modern synthetic pigment. This was an important invention, because at that time, the available blue pigments were either not very successful or were not affordable for large scale use. The pigment was first mentioned in a letter, the first of several, from Frisch to the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences,

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to ...

, dated March 1708. By August 1709, the pigment was being referred to as "Preussisch Blau" and by November of that year, as "Berlinisch Blau".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diesbach, Heinrich 18th-century German painters 18th-century German male artists German male painters 1748 deaths 17th-century German chemists 17th-century Swiss scientists Artists from Bern 1670s births