Winsor & Newton Professional Water Colour offers artists the widest and most balanced choice of pigments with the greatest possible permanence. The brilliance, transparency, and purity of colour is unparalleled to any other water colour. Since 1832 when Henry Newton and William Winsor introduced the first moist water colours to the world, much of our reputation for supreme quality has stemmed from the Professional Water Colour range. Since then Professional Water Colour continues to be formulated and manufactured according to our founding principles. Each colour within this wide and balanced spectrum of 96 colours, has been selected and formulated to offer the greatest choice so that artists can use a unique palette that best suits their work. Caput Mortuum Violet is a soft mauve-brown colour. It is an opaque pigment. It was called Caput Mortuum (meaning 'head of the dead') by the Romans, referring to the colour of dried blood.