Gamboge is a resin harvested from the Garcinia tree in Southeast Asia — the purest, most transparent yellow in the traditional palette. Named after Cambodia (Cambodge in French), where it was primarily harvested.

Gamboge is warm intelligence and luminosity — the yellow of illuminated manuscripts, of Asian lacquerware, of sunlight filtered through leaves. Its transparency gives it a glow that opaque yellows cannot match.

Used in Chinese and Japanese ink painting for thousands of years. European artists adopted it from the 17th century — Canaletto used gamboge for the light on Venetian architecture. Buddhist robes in Southeast Asian traditions are dyed with gamboge. The colour is intrinsically connected to tropical light and Buddhist aesthetics.