Requires a Deep Base Paint Recommended Base Paint: Deep Base Interior Flat Wall PaintRouge rubia looks ornamental decorates rooms and is reminiscent of the red of great painters such as Rubens and Rembrandt. The colour is dynamic even in shaded environments. The history of ruby red The plant rubia tinctorum (also called dyer's madder or madder) belongs to the genus rubia and is a cultivated and traditional dying plant. It was already cultivated in ancient times by Egyptians Persians Greeks and Romans. The romans gave madder the name "rubia" because of the red dye obtained from its roots. Madder's dye grows naturally in Eastern Mediterranean countries and Western Asia. This heatloving plant lives on fields in vineyards and on waysides. It is supposed that Benedictine monks brought the plant over the alps. In the middle ages important growing areas were located in the Netherlands on the upper Rhine and in Alsace (Alsatian madder Hagenau red) in Speyer (Speyer red) in Senlis near Paris and later in South France. Smaller growing areas were located near Braunschweig in Provence in Castile and Hungary. At the end of the middle ages and at the beginning of the modern age dyers especially those in the Ottoman empire and India were able to achieve the desired shade of red consistently. The "Turkish red" was manufactured in a three to fourmonth process consisting of over a dozen steps. It was only later that detailed knowledge of the processing stages came to Europe. Since antiquity and until the synthetic production of alizarin (1869) madder's dye was very important as a dye for red. As one of the most important cultivated plants madder root was an important commodity in trade between Asia and Europe.