The colour "ultramarine red" is one you will see a lot with us. On the website, in our printed correspondence – even in our interior design. "Ultramarine red" means reminiscence and respect for patent law.

In 1836, Johannes Zeltner began, for entrepreneurial reasons, to promote the process to create ultramarine red developed by Thomas Leykauf and Friedrich Wilhelm Heyne (1804-85). In Nuremberg in 1838, he set up the first ultramarine factory in Bavaria, the Nürnberger Ultramarinfabrik. On 2 July 1877, Zeltner registered his "Process for the production of a red ultramarine colour" as a patent – the first ever German patent.

Ultramarinus (lat.) for "overseas; over the sea". Collective name for inorganic pigments of various colours, but this very similar chemical structure. They are extremely lightfast and based on minerals which have to be imported to Europe from "over the sea".