Perylene Maroon sits somewhere between crimson and earth red, a deep red with a brownish cast; sort of brick-colored. It’s useful to deepen scarlets and mute greens and blues to make more realistic landscape tones. I became interested in Perylene Maroon after watching Denise from In Liquid Color paint a pigeon using shades of gray from a mix of Perylene Maroon and Cerulean.
Pigment Stats for PR179
Chemical composition: Perylene
Lightfastness: Generally rated Excellent (I), untested by me
Toxicity: Nontoxic (per ArtIsCreation)
Observations of DV Perylene Maroon
Hue: A dull, bricky red. All the versions of this pigment that I tried dried with tiny, white dots/gaps – I think this is a characteristic of the pigment.
Drying Shift: There was a big drying shift. The color was much darker and more vibrant before it dried. The tiny dots might have something to do with this since they appeared during the drying.
Gradient: Easy and pleasurable to grade but I didn’t love the result as much as I enjoyed the experience. The wash seemed to get stuck and created a big “step” instead of an even gradient. Color moved quickly when wet (too quickly – creating horizontal lines seen above). It handled like an opaque pigment even though it is not opaque. (These issues are all unique to DV, as far as I can tell. Other versions handled differently; see comparison below.)
Opacity: Transparent.
Glazing: Glazes to a deep brown.
Salt: Nice salt reaction with plenty of texture.
Blooms: Complex blooms with dark halos.
Compared to Other Brands
PR179 is one of those pigments that can have different personalities depending on the brand.
Multiple Brand Comparison
I became a patron of Oto Kano, and dot card comparing multiple versions of Perylene Maroon was one of my rewards. Here’s Oto Kano’s comparison of these colors.
Here are my quick impressions:
- Daniel Smith: muted, high tinting strength, difficult to grade/streaky
- Holbein: orangey, lightly textured, moderate tinting strength
- Schmincke: incredibly smooth, easy to grade, significant drying shift (painted out bright red); Da Vinci is most similar to this one
- Winsor & Newton: moderate tinting strength, very textured, slightly more muted than Holbein
- Mission Gold: high tinting strength, deep masstone, reasonable gradient and pleasant hue
- Daler Rowney: very orangey, bolder than others, moderate tinting strength
- White Nights: low tint, very textured, similar to WN
- Winsor & Newton Designers’ Gouache: Bold, most reddish, not as muted or as dark in the masstone as the watercolor version. I really like this hue.
Of the ones on this page, my favorite hue is Daler Rowney; my favorite all-arounder is Mission Gold; and I also really like the WN gouache.
Here’s a closer look at the ones I’ve individually tried.
Daler Rowney Artist – Perylene Red (PR179)
Similar handling to Da Vinci Perylene Maroon, but less brownish/orangeish; more of a crimson color, similar to Pyrrol Crimson or Sanguine Red. Less pinky than Alizarin Crimson. I found this a bit dull as a red, but a possible choice if you’re looking for a real side-of-a-barn color and you love the handling of Perylene Maroon.
Very striking black with Holbein Shadow Green (Perylene Green PBk31)! Also neutralizes Phthalo Green to a middle gray.
Daler Rowney Artist – Perylene Maroon (PR179)
To me, this one looks and handles a lot more like Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet. It’s slightly less orange than QBS, but much more orange than Da Vinci’s Perylene Maroon, and handles a lot more like the transparent pigments I’m used to: more of a smooth gradient, less of a fast mover. Tinting strength is slightly weak but I felt I was able to get more range out of it than QBS.
I really like the mixes, which I find surprisingly bright and cheery for a fairly muted color. It created a passable fire engine red with Quinacridone Coral and made a nice range of earth oranges from my various earth tones. It also makes nice grays; it totally neturalizes my Phthalo and Cobalt Blues to neutral grays. Interestingly, unlike the other Perylene Maroons here, it turned Shadow Green (Perylene Green) and Jadeite into bright browns instead of blacks!
I really liked this color, though I did find its texture in the palette a bit off-putting; even when fully dry and solid, it remained quite sticky and tacky.
Here’s the side-by-side comparison of the two Daler Rowney PR179s:
Holbein – Perylene Maroon
I tried this one twice.
Moderate tinting strength; lower than I usually like, but you can get a decent deep red masstone out of it. Relatively high-chroma for this pigment.
It appears to me that they have changed suppliers between 2023 and 2025. The old version was one of the cooler colors, and a bit textured. The new version is warmer and smoother. I shocked myself by how much I actually like the new one!
Mission Gold – Perylene Maroon
I got this on the strength of the Oto Kano dot card, and I like it! Although there is still a drying shift, the value range is fantastic, the color is deep, the hue is nicely balanced between scarlet and brick red, and it has fewer white dots than most brands. Like many Mission Gold paints, it gets shiny in masstone.
My main problem with it is textural; it tends to be sticky and not quite dry fully, at least in my environment.
Winsor & Newton – Perylene Maroon
Another with orangey undertones, though more on the muted/burnt orange side. Slightly more muted than DRA or Holbein, and noticeable weaker. It was difficult to get dark color with any of the mixes.
Daniel Smith – Perylene Maroon
It took me a long time to try the DS version (largely because they do not appear to offer a 5ml sample), but having tried it, I like it quite a bit. Although it has the duller color that I don’t like as much, it gets really strong in masstone and makes really dark mixes with other colors, especially striking blacks and browns with shadeso f blue and green. The black with Perylene Green is blacker than almost any combination I’ve seen, except maybe DS Perylene Violet (PV29).
Color Mixes
There are a mix of brands here: note them in the captions.
Rich Green Gold
This green-toned gold mixes up a range of glowing orangey shades, including a gold that looks to me like Quin Gold.
Quinacridone Rose
PV19 rose pinks are on the purpler side of red and Perylene Maroon is on the oranger side. Combined, they make true crimson reds. The mixes tilted toward PV19 look more like Alizarin Crimson with a pinkish bias, especially in dilute. Mixes tilted more toward Perylene Maroon fade abruptly to “light red” rather than pink, and to me resemble something like Pyrrol Crimson.
Quinacridone Violet (PV19b)
Gorgeously deep crimsons and maroons. These colors darken and balance each other without making them grayed at all.
Indanthrone Blue (PB60)
Dark and moody violet-blues and muted violets. Gets to near-black in masstone, not because it’s neutral, but because it’s just so dark.
Ultramarine Blue
The orange-toned earthy red of the DR Perylene Maroon both dulls the Ultramarine and makes it purpler, for very dark, low-chroma, violet-blue-grays. With more Perylene Maroon, it creates a reddish-brown.
Cobalt Blue
A range of granulating soft red-browns, purpley grays and muted blues. I love all of these for muted, atmospheric colors. Similar to the Ultramarine mixes, but I like these better – they’re more varied.
Cerulean Blue (PB36)
Similar to the Cobalt mixes, but even more granulating, softer and never getting dark. Personally, I think the Cobalt mixes are more useful because of their greater range.
Phthalo Blue Red Shade (PB15:1)
Similar to Indanthrone Blue and its mixes, because the PR179 neutralizes and darkens the phthalo.
Phthalo Blue Green Shade (PG15:3)
A brighter, bolder and wider range of colors than the Cobalt or Cerulean (and not granulating), from a muted pink-peach to rich brown to medium gray to blue-grays to muted sea blue. This is one of those ranges I think would be really useful for a lot of different situations, including portraiture and seascapes.
Viridian (PG18)
The Viridian mutes the Perylene Maroon to a range of baked bean colors through grayish brown. I found it hard to get a greeny mix because Perylene Maroon is so much stronger than Viridian.
What Others Say
This colors excels at making flesh tones, muted secondaries, and dark tones, but you don’t want to use this color for applications like trying to make bright oranges or purples… This pigment goes through a massive drying shift… I also noticed a lot of white speckles showing through the paper.
Denise Soden, Color Spotlight: Perylene Maroon
Perylene Maroon is a beautifully rich, warm red that softens rather dramatically when it dries, and it’s a great color for everything from landscapes to lips. It’s also a stable mixer; combined with Phthalo Green (PG7), it produces a gorgeous range of darks, or try it with Raw Sienna (PBr7) to gain a lovely earth orange.
Tonya @ Scratchmade Journal, Watercolor Comparison: The Color Red
I also use it quite a lot for foliage, especially in autumn. I am actually looking at some rose foliage right now that has this exact red shade in the young shoots.
Sandrine Maugy, Pigment Spotlight – The Perylene Family
For those who are still using alizarin crimson (PR83), I recommend you try perylene maroon as a replacement. It has a dark, warm, dull color without the bluish overtones common to all red and crimson quinacridone pigments… Its mixing complements include phthalo green BS (PG7), which produces a pure jet black darker than most carbon pigment paints.
Bruce MacEvoy, handprint.com
There’s probably only one place on the internet where the recommendation is to avoid Alizarin Crimson. EVERYONE still uses it, well, at least they say they do. But Bruce McEvoy of Handprint recommends giving Perry (my pet name for this pigment) a try and I’m so glad I did. It’s quite simply luscious. If you need red velvet curtains? Ask Perry. If you need the blackest black you can ever make, introduce Perry to Pthalo Green. It’s not an everyday pigment for me in the book illustration work that I do, but for landscapes, it’s a delight to work with.
Matt Shanks, My core colour palette: eleven pigments that have earned my trust
The Winsor Newton Designer Gouache: (1) works great on cheap paper, and (2) a lot more affordable. The only thing to look out for is that it will crack on your palette, so it might be better to use it straight out of the tube… On cotton paper, in terms of hue, I love how the Winsor & Newton [watercolor] looks, I think that’s a really Perylene Maroon (what I think of as Perylene Maroon). The Mission Gold one is a little dark and suffers from a lot of sheen. I’d say it’s between Winsor & Newton and Daniel Smith.
Oto Kano, Comparing 12 Perylene Maroon Watercolors – Colossal Color Showdown
The Holbein is definitely my favourite. I kind of like it a bit warmer.
Jay Nathan, PR179 Perylene Maroon Watercolor Comparison – White Nights – Daniel Smith – Holbein – Schmincke
My Review
Perylene Maroon is so different depending on the exact formulation!
I found two basic categories of Perylene Maroon hue: more orangey ones, and more reddish ones. Each serves a different role in your palette.
| More Orangey Hue | More Reddish Hue | |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | WN, DR Perylene Maroon | DV, DS, SH, DR Perylene Red |
| Neutralizes | blues | greens |
| Other uses | skin tones | shadows |
| Alternatives | Quinacridone Burnt Scarlet (PR206), Deep Scarlet (PR175) | Perylene Red (PR178), Pyrrol Crimson (PR264) |
Hue aside, I think the biggest different in usability is the value of the masstone. All the versions had a noticeable drying shift, but a few (Daniel Smith, Mission Gold, Holbein) were able to maintain a strong masstone in spite of that. It is these ones that I find most useful. With a really strong Perylene Maroon, you can:
- Mix deep crimsons with Pyrrol Red, Quin Rose, Quin Magenta, etc.
- Mix striking blacks with Perylene Green, Phthalo Green, or to some extent Phthalo Blues
- Deepen Indanthrone Blue into an inky indigo
- Mix lovely red-browns, reminsicent of Imidazolone Brown (PBr25), with violet or earth tones
I have found that Quin Burnt Scarlet (PR206), Deep Scarlet (PR175), and other transparent maroons do not typically get dark enough for these use cases.
Favorite versions: Holbein, currently; I was “meh” about it in 2023 but the 2025 version has a nice warm hue in my opinion, a nice balance between the orangey and reddy variants!
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Holbein – Perylene Maroon, 5ml tube: Jackson’s US