Pleasant Persia Teal

From the French plaisant, pleasing — used as a color modifier since the fifteenth century for hues that read as agreeable, the kind of color that wears well over a long viewing without becoming demanding or fatiguing. Pleasant green, pleasant rose: moderate saturation combined with optical comfort. Sits at the crisp-bucket alongside easy and calm.

Latin Persia, Persia. As a color modifier, persia implies an Achaemenid-and-Safavid-Imperial quality, the visual register of Achaemenid-Persia-and-Safavid-Persia hand-built Persepolis-and-Isfahan-and-Persian-rug-and-tile Imperial-Persian surfaces under Persepolis-and-Isfahan Achaemenid-and-Safavid Imperial-Persian high-desert light. Sits at the modifier-and-cultural end of the grid, parallel to median and achaemenid in usage.

Anas crecca, the small dabbling duck whose male in breeding plumage sports a chestnut head crossed by a glossy green-blue stripe. The color refers to that stripe — the iridescent panel just behind the eye: a saturated, slightly muted blue-green with the optical depth of structural color rather than pigment. Cooler than cypress, warmer than cerulean, with the ornithological specificity of a color named for one feather of one bird.