Payne's grey

Payne's grey is a dark blue-grey colour used in painting. Originally a mixture of iron blue (Prussian blue), yellow ochre and crimson lake, Payne's grey now is often a mixture of blue (ultramarine, phthalocyanine, or indigo) and black, or of ultramarine and burnt sienna. The colour is named after William Payne, who painted watercolours in the late 18th century, who most likely developed the colour while trying to produce a mixer that was less intense than black. Payne's grey was deemed an obsolete term in the early 19th century, but is still used by artists today.

The first recorded use of "Payne's grey" as a colour name in English was in 1835.

The normalized colour coordinates for Payne's grey are identical to dark electric blue, which was formalized as a colour in the ISCC–NBS system in 1955.