Its a colour family and pigment that was manly used antiquity and the 19th century, in the early years of it existing it was made from the powdered mineral cinnabar which has very high contents of mercury and sulphur (mercury sulfide) which is highly toxic to humans. this is what the pigment would look like when ground down into a powder. the first ever recorded use of the colour vermillion dates all the way back to 8000-7000 BC. sooner or later many places who had been using the colour vermillion in pigments for lipstick, cheek stain, painting the walls etc, had realised it was highly toxic and dangerous so places tried to find alternatives to using cinnabar. Things started to change in the 17th century surrounding the pigment and how they made it, This was introduced as the Dutch method and this was essentially mercury and melted sulphur were mashed together, this then created black mercury sufide. after that as done it was heated in a retort, creating vapours that presented the...