Turkey Red Dye: History of the Ottoman Madder Red on Cotton

Turkey red was the most famous red of the 18th and 19th centuries. It was a bright, deep red on cotton that did not fade in sun or washing. Europe could not make it for a long time. The secret came from the Ottoman Empire, and the dye came from madder root. This article tells the story of Turkey red dye: where it came from, how the long process worked, how it spread to France and Scotland, and how synthetic alizarin changed it forever.

What is Turkey red?

Turkey red is not a single dye. It is a process for dyeing cotton red with madder. Cotton is hard to dye with madder, because plant fibers hold little mordant. Turkey red solved this with many rounds of oil, tannin and alum before dyeing. The result was a brilliant, very fast red.

It had many names. In France it was "rouge d'Andrinople" (Adrianople red, after the city of Edirne) or "rouge des Indes". In English it was "Turkey red" or "Adrianople red". The color came from madder root (Rubia tinctorum), which grows in Anatolia and has been used there for centuries.

Roots in Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire

Oil-and-madder methods for red on cotton were known across a wide region, from India to the eastern Mediterranean. But the method Europe wanted came from Ottoman lands. Historical sources name dye centers in Edirne (Adrianople), İzmir (Smyrna) and Bursa, and also Ampelakia in Thessaly, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. Local dyers in these towns, many of them Greek, held the know-how and passed it down.

Anatolia had what the process needed: madder grown in the region, olive oil, alum, and tannin from oak galls and sumac. Turkish researchers Recep Karadağ and Emre Dölen re-examined the process in 2007. They dyed cotton yarn with madder by a Turkey red method and studied the dye, the oil and the tin on the fiber.

How the Turkey red process worked

The process was long, smelly and secret. Accounts differ. A 1786 Manchester account lists about a dozen stages with repeats. The Cooper Hewitt museum describes 15 to 20 steps. A full cycle could take weeks.

The main stages were:

1. Scouring and bleaching. Cotton yarn was boiled in alkaline lye to clean it.
2. Oiling. The yarn was soaked many times in an emulsion of olive oil (often rancid oil), alkali and sometimes sheep dung, then dried. This was repeated over days. Researchers today see the oil as the heart of the process.
3. Dunging. Baths with dung helped fix the mordant and remove the excess.
4. Galling. The yarn was treated with tannin from oak galls or sumac. Tannin helps cotton hold more aluminium.
5. Alum mordanting. Alum was applied, often made less acidic with soda or chalk.
6. Dyeing. The yarn was dyed in madder, often with chalk, and in some recipes with ox blood.
7. Clearing (brightening). A boil with soap and soda, later with tin salts, removed dull brown compounds and made the red bright.

The final color was a complex of alizarin, aluminium, calcium and oil on the cotton. This is why it was so fast. Later chemists found that calcium is part of the red alizarin complex, and that the dyers had used it long before anyone could explain it.

Because the oil made cloth flammable, dyeworks built separate drying houses. The process also resisted normal printing, so most Turkey red was sold as solid yarn or cloth until discharge printing (bleaching patterns out of red cloth) was developed.

The secret travels to France

In the 1740s, French officials wanted the secret. In the mid-1740s, the first Turkey red works in Western Europe opened at Darnétal near Rouen and at Aubenas in the south. Two masters from İzmir, d'Haristoy and Goudard, are named in the histories, with Greek dyers brought from the Levant. In 1776, more Greek dyers were hired directly from Adrianople with government help. By the 1780s, Rouen dyers had almost a monopoly of the trade.

Glasgow and the Vale of Leven

In Britain, Manchester dyers tried to copy the process from the 1750s. The big step came in 1785. A French dyer, Pierre Jacques Papillon, came to Glasgow. With George Mackintosh and David Dale, he opened the first Turkey red dyeworks in Scotland, at Dalmarnock.

The industry soon moved to the Vale of Leven, west of Glasgow. The River Leven gave plenty of clean water. By the 1820s the Vale was a major Turkey red center. Firms like William Stirling and Sons, John Orr Ewing and Co. and Archibald Orr Ewing and Co. employed thousands of workers.

Scottish Turkey red was sold plain or printed with bold patterns, and it was shipped around the world. In 1898 the three big firms merged into the United Turkey Red Company.

Synthetic alizarin changes everything

In 1826, French chemists Robiquet and Colin isolated alizarin and purpurin, the main red dyes in madder. In 1868, German chemists Carl Graebe and Carl Liebermann showed how alizarin relates to anthracene, a compound from coal tar. By 1869 they, working with BASF, and William Henry Perkin in England, had each found a way to make alizarin in the factory.

Synthetic alizarin was much cheaper than madder. The madder trade collapsed within a few years. Turkey red was the first major natural dye process to switch to a synthetic copy. University of Glasgow research notes that synthetic alizarin was in commercial use from about 1870, and by the mid-1870s it had largely replaced madder in the industry. A new "Turkey red oil" (sulfonated castor oil) also made the process much shorter.

So the synthetic dye ended natural madder Turkey red, but not the Turkey red industry at once. The Scottish works kept going with synthetic alizarin. Competition from Manchester, India and cheaper German dyes slowly pushed them out. The last United Turkey Red works closed in 1961.

Turkey red, Anatolia and themazi

Turkey red is part of a long story of natural color in Anatolia. Madder, oak galls, sumac and alum were all traded through this region for centuries. themazi is a natural dye supplier based in Turkey. Our family roots are in the oak gall trade, going back to the 1950s. Oak galls were one of the tannins used in the galling step of Turkey red. Read more in our Aleppo oak galls tannin guide.

Today you can explore the same materials at home: white oak galls, sumac leaf powder, alum, chalk (calcium carbonate) and madder.

Can you dye Turkey red at home?

The full historic process is long, messy and hard to control. Most home dyers use a simpler modern method that borrows its key ideas: tannin, then alum, then madder with chalk.

• Scour cotton with 2–5% WOF soda ash.
• Tannin: oak gall at 8–15% WOF.
• Alum at 12–15% WOF with about 1.5–2% soda ash.
• Madder root powder at 50–100% WOF, or madder extract at 3–10% WOF, with 2–6% WOF chalk.
• Keep the dye bath below 80 °C (176 °F).

See mordanting cotton and linen and how to dye with madder for full steps, and use the WOF calculator for amounts. Our madder dye kit for red shades and cellulose mordant kit make a good start. You will get a good madder red on cotton, though not the full depth of historic Turkey red.

Troubleshooting madder red on cotton

• Pale orange instead of red: Cotton needs tannin and alum first. Alum alone is not enough.
• Brown-red: The bath was too hot. Stay below 80 °C (176 °F).
• Dull or weak color in soft water: Add chalk. The historic dyers used calcium too.
• Uneven color: Scour well and let the cloth move freely in the bath.

More fixes: madder dye troubleshooting.

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called Turkey red?

Because Europeans learned the process from dyers in the Ottoman Empire, which they called Turkey. The French name, Adrianople red, points to the city of Edirne.

What was Turkey red dye made from?

The red came from madder root. The process also used olive oil, alkali, dung, tannin from oak galls or sumac, alum, chalk and sometimes blood.

When did Turkey red end?

Natural madder Turkey red declined quickly after synthetic alizarin arrived in 1869. The Scottish industry continued with synthetic alizarin until the last works closed in 1961.

Is Turkey red the same as madder red?

Turkey red is a special madder red on cotton made with an oil mordant. Ordinary madder red uses alum, and on cotton usually tannin too.

Sources and further reading

• National Museums Scotland. Colouring the Nation: Turkey red and the Vale of Leven
• Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. Turkey red
• Wertz, J. H. (2017). Turkey red dyeing in late-19th century Glasgow. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.
• Karadağ, R. and Dölen, E. (2007). Re-examination of Turkey red. Annali di Chimica, 97(7), 583–589.
• West Dunbartonshire Council. Turkey red in the Vale (PDF)

Related: Everything to know about madder · Aleppo oak galls tannin guide · Natural vs synthetic dyes