Puce Puce Puce is a dark red or purple brown color, a brownish purple or a "dark reddish brown." "Puce" is the French word for "flea". The color is said to be the color of bloodstains on linen or bedsheets, even after being laundered, from a flea's droppings, or after a flea has been crushed. The "Oxford English Dictionary" ("OED") dates the first English use of "puce" as a color to 1778. The name comes from the French word "puce", or flea, which comes from the Latin words for flea, "pulicem" or "pulex". According to the "Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology",
The Ghost of a Flea lifted "the veil of darkness...from it without any impairing of the surface, and the picture now appears exactly as described by Allan Cunningham. The colours, though deep, are clear and brilliant; the gold, used to heighten the lights, shines with its old power, and on the floor, between the feet of the striding." It was first displayed at the Tate on loan in 1913, and donated to the gallery by Robertson in 1948. The Ghost of a Flea The Ghost of a Flea is a miniature painting by the English poet, painter and printmaker William Blake, held in the Tate