Royal Hyssop Ruby

The blue of European royal court dress and regalia from the late seventeenth century forward — the color of British peers' robes, French royal sashes, the lining of the crown-jewel cases. The color refers to a saturated, slightly violet-shifted blue with the matte finish of velvet or melton wool dyed to maximum intensity: deeper than cornflower, warmer than ultramarine, with the heraldic weight of a color reserved for monarchs and the official Crown.

Hebrew ēzōb, Biblical-purifying-herb. As a color modifier, hyssop implies a Biblical-purifying-herb-and-monastic-physic-garden quality, the visual register of monastic-physic-garden-and-Biblical-hyssop hand-Biblical-purifying-herb-and-monastic-physic-garden monastic-physic-garden-and-Biblical-hyssop-and-Cluniac-cloister hyssop-and-Biblical-purifying-herb surfaces under monastic-physic-garden-and-Biblical-hyssop-and-Cluniac-cloister Cluny-and-Saint-Gall-physic-garden monastic-physic-light. Sits at the modifier-and-flavor end of the grid, parallel to savory and balm in usage.

From the Latin ruber — simply, red. The gemstone is a chromium-tinged corundum, harder than anything in nature except diamond, and so saturated that a fine Burmese pigeon's blood ruby at auction outpaces a comparable diamond by weight. The color borrows the gem's confidence: a clear, glassy red without the brown of garnet or the blue of crimson.