How the Victorians invented colour

In the Ashmolean, look out for a reclining woman reading a book. She may be wearing a black dress, but she is surrounded by vivid bursts of colour: a rich green sofa, a yellow-jacketed book, not to mention her warmly coloured lips and copper-coloured hair. It’s a portrait of the Parisian model Madeleine Boisguillaume, painted in 1899 by the Spanish artist Ramon Casas (Decadent Young Woman, After the Dance), and included in the Oxford museum’s upcoming exhibition Colour Revolution: Victorian Art,