Deep, chromatic and powerful, Dioxazine Violet, also is sometimes found as PV23RS or PV23BS (red shade and blue shade respectively). This is a nearly ubiquitous violet. Unfortunately it is not perfectly lightfast, which seems to be a trend among violet pigments. But the high chroma makes this rich purple gemtone hard to resist.

This is one of those pigments which has varying lightfastness depending on the pigment manufacturer, so it is worth testing one's own paints. We found some interesting notes from Bruce MacEvoy's work on watercolor which suggested that sometimes violet mixes didn't actually have as strong of lightfastness as the higher-quality versions of single-pigment PV23, so that was a shock. Whether those tests only apply to watercolor or extend to oil would be interesting to discover.

This is a deep dark color in masstone that unfurls its chroma in glazes and tints.

Though the toxicity is generally thought to be low, we still handle it with caution, as we do all pigments and artists' paints. We were surprised to hear that depending on the pigment supplier, PV23 can sometimes have undisclosed contaminants. According to Monona Rossol's work PV23 is sometimes contaminated by dioxins.