Plumbed Fall Ultramarine

Latin plumbum, lead — past-participle of plumb (to measure depth with a lead-weighted line). As a color modifier, plumbed implies a deep-and-cool quality measured-to-its-fullest-depth, the dark cool-gray of lead-and-pewter metallic surfaces. Sits at the deep-and-cool end of the grid, parallel to fathomless with metallic register.

Old English feallan, to fall / autumn. As a color modifier, fall implies an autumn-leaf-and-harvest quality, the visual register of New-England-and-English-autumn deciduous-leaf-fall maple-and-oak-and-beech autumnal-orange-and-crimson surfaces under Northern-Hemisphere autumn raking light. Sits at the modifier-and-time end of the grid, parallel to yule and reap in usage.

The pigment ground from lapis lazuli — the Afghan mineral imported through Venice in the late Middle Ages, more expensive by weight than gold during the Renaissance. The color refers to a freshly mixed ultramarine pigment in linseed oil: a saturated, slightly violet-shifted deep blue with the matte finish of micron-ground rock. Deeper than cobalt, cooler than royal, with the art-historical weight of the blue Vermeer reserved for Mary's robe.