Light Brown Drab & Etruscan Red +1

About this combination

Combination 185 of 348 in Wada's six-volume 1933 work. A 3-colour grouping of Light Brown Drab, Etruscan Red, Pale Lemon Yellow, as documented in the original plates.

Historical context

Plate 185 of Wada's 348 anchors Light Brown Drab, Etruscan Red and Pale Lemon Yellow in the red family — a 3-colour grouping with a refined, warm character, recorded in the Showa-era volumes of Sanzo Wada's 1933 Dictionary of Color Combinations, where these shikisai names have sat in the public domain for generations. Its strongest pairing — Etruscan Red on Pale Lemon Yellow — reaches a contrast ratio of 3.87:1, usable for large text but not body copy, so it reads best in decorative blocks rather than text pairings.