---
title: "Scheele's green"
description: "Scheele's green is a bright copper-arsenite pigment, credited to Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1775, used on cloth, wallpaper and artificial leaves."
type: Glossary
url: https://teazle.art/glossary/scheeles-green
published: 2026-10-16
updated: 2026-10-16
author: "The Teazle editors"
---

# Scheele's green

*Scheele's green is a bright copper-arsenite pigment, credited to Carl Wilhelm Scheele in 1775, used on cloth, wallpaper and artificial leaves.*

Scheele's green is a bright green pigment made from copper arsenite. It is credited to the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who is said to have invented it in 1775 and published his method in 1778. It colored wallpaper, paint, cloth, toys and artificial leaves through much of the nineteenth century.

## Why is it remembered?

Its arsenic content. Artificial-flower makers who dusted the powder onto leaves were among the best-documented victims: at the 1861 inquest into the death of Matilda Scheurer, a London leaf maker, a surgeon testified that her lungs and liver contained arsenite of copper. In 1862 the chemist A. W. Hofmann warned in The Times that green dresses and wreaths colored with it were toxic. Physicians later reported eye, throat and skin trouble in wearers of green tarlatan dresses and green gloves.

## How does it differ from Paris green?

Schweinfurt green, also called Paris green or emerald green, is a related copper acetoarsenite, first made commercially at Schweinfurt, Germany, in 1814 in an attempt to improve on Scheele's green. It is brighter and more durable, and the two are often confused. Germany banned arsenic-based copper colors in clothing and wallpaper by an ordinance of 1882, in force from 1883.


## Sources

1. [Scheele's Green (invented 1775, method published 1778)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheele%27s_Green). Wikipedia (used to locate references)
2. [This Week's Post: Free From Arsenic](https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/caring-for-our-collections/weeks-post-free-arsenic). Victoria and Albert Museum
3. [History of Emerald green](https://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/history/emerald.html). WebExhibits
4. [Verordnung, betreffend die Verwendung giftiger Farben (1 May 1882), para. 4](https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Verordnung,_betreffend_die_Verwendung_giftiger_Farben). Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 1882, no. 11, via Wikisource

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