Mauve (French form of Malva, "mallow") is a pale grayed pink-lilac color, one of many in the range of purples. It is more gray and more blue than a pale tint of magenta would be. Many pale wildflowers called "blue" are mauve.
Discovery
Mauve was first named in 1856. Chemist William Perkins, then eighteen, was attempting to create artificial quinine. An unexpected residue caught his eye, which turned out to be the first aniline dye—specifically, mauveine, sometimes called aniline purple. Perkins was so successful in recommending his discovery to the dyestuffs industry that his biography by Simon Garfield is titled Mauve (2001).
The Mauve Decade was the title Thomas Beer (1889–1940) found to characterize "American life at the end of the nineteenth century" in 1926. Looking back on this time, Beer did not like the direction in which the country was headed, believing it was moving away from New England traditions to a time of "decay and meaningless phrases". He took the title from a quote from artist James Whistler: "Mauve is just pink trying to be purple."
See also