Chemical archaeology with historical museum samples of mauveine†

Samples (both in powder and fabrics) from the Science Museum (ScM), Chandler Museum (CM), Museum of Science and Industry (MSIM), Deutsches Museum (Caro), and Bradford Colour Experience Museum (BcM) were analysed by HPLC-DAD, HPLC-DAD-MS, and UHPLC-HRMS to address two key aspects in the history of Perkin's mauveine: (i) the common origin of the Bradford and some of the Science Museum samples and (ii) the presence of o- and p-toluidine (and the absence of tert-butyl-p-toluidine) in the various museum samples. Regarding (i), the data show that the Bradford samples have the same origin as some of the samples from the Science Museum (London) and the Chandler Museum (New York). As the Chandler Museum sample was acquired from Perkin to mark the anniversary of the synthesis of mauveine, it can be concluded that all Bradford Museum samples also originate from Perkin, either directly or via his synthetic procedure. Regarding (ii), the findings confirm that the original synthetic, patented mauveine product was obtained from impure aniline containing both o- and p-toluidine, with no evidence of the presence of tert-butyl-p-toluidine.