bister

bister or bistre (BIS-ter) - n., a yellowish-brown to dark brown pigment made from wood soot; a dark greyish brown color (#3D2B1F:                ).


The pigment is most often used in pen drawing or wash painting such as this one by Fragonard:


Thanks, WikiMedia!

Dictionaries, even art glossaries, seem evenly divided as to whether bister or bistre is the primary spelling, which reflects how much technical language of art has been taken from French, as bistre is the original French spelling -- it dates to the 16th century but is origin entirely unknown, to my surprise.

---L.