Daniel Smith is the only company that offers this pigment, PV32, which they call Bordeaux. It’s a deep, semi-transparent, non-granulating, wine-colored pigment: somewhere between magenta and purple.
Experiment Results
Gradient: A gorgeously smooth gradient that gets very very deep. In masstone, it is more on the red/maroon side, but it grades to a pale lilac.
Granulating: No.
Opacity: Totally transparent.
Glazing: Glazes to a shockingly deep maroon/crimson.
Comparison to Other Colors
The closest comparison would probably be to a PV19 purple (like this example, Winsor & Newton Permanent Magenta). Bordeaux is redder, especially in masstone.
Bordeaux is also much redder than Quinacridone Purple, but much purpler than Perylene Maroon.
SH Quin Purple, DS Bordeaux, DS Perylene Maroon
It’s sort of similar to Quin Rose or Alizarin Crimson, especially in its reddish masstone, but it dilutes to a light purple instead of pink.
Comparison to Other Brands
None possible. No other brand makes this pigment.
Color Mixes
Lemon Yellow
Awkward mixes with yellow – sort of muddy golds and oranges that I’m not sure how I would use.
Monte Amiata Natural Sienna
I like these colors next to each other for a fall palette, but the mix isn’t inspiring me.
Quinacridone Coral
Pyrrol Orange
A very bold orange turns into a sort of a muted red.
Transparent Pyrrol Orange
I was hoping I’d make crimson from this mix but it never quite got there, instead landing on a sort of awkward cranberry.
(I wrote ‘PM’ but I meant ‘TPO’. Perylene Maroon is below.)
Perylene Maroon
This was also too dull to get to crimson, instead being kind of red bean colored.
Pyrrol Scarlet
I was originally really impressed with crimsons this made, but after swatching out single pigment crimsons (e.g. Alizarin and Pyrrol Crimson), these started to look kind of dull to me.
Cobalt Blue
Nice bold range of purples.
Phthalo Turquoise
This is a great combination I’ve used a few times for dark night skies. Both colors get really dark and the combination yields a range of purple-blues that are darker and more muted than either gets individually.
My Overall Review
This is one of those colors that I really enjoy but don’t need.
I loved swatching this out. It was love at first brush so much that I bought it as soon as I’d swatched it out from the Daniel Smith Dot Cards. It handles beautifully, is easy to rewet, and makes a nice, juicy, deep, vivid color.
However, I haven’t reached for it too often in practice, so I ended up moving it to my “B team” palette.
One problem with Bordeaux is that, like the Primatek greens, it changes hue depending on how diluted it is. In masstone it’s quite reddish but in dilute it’s very purple. That makes it hard to plan around compared to a simpler, more predictable magenta or red pigment.
On the plus side, if you are painting something that has that kind of gradient from redder to purpler, it’s great. It gives a super-vivid plum color to over-the-top sunsets.
As I mentioned in the color mixes, it’s also wonderful for making dark night sky mixes with a blue-green, like Marine Blue (PB16).
I’ve just found it difficult to work Bordeaux into a palette. It’s duller than a primary magenta like PR122 or PV19, but similar enough that it’s hard to justify having both. Daniel Smith suggests using it to paint cranberries, which is a pretty limited use case that most people probably don’t do much. I have, but I didn’t find myself reaching for Bordeaux; I used a mix of Deep Scarlet and Quinacridone Magenta.
On my palette? No, it’s even on thin ice on the B team.