Cloth dyed with madder root pigment was found in the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun,[5] in the ruins of Pompeii[citation needed], and ancient Athens and Corinth.

The distinctive red color would continue to be worn for centuries (though also produced by other dyes such as cochineal), giving English and later British soldiers the nickname of "redcoats".

Over the following years, it was found that other metal salts, including those containing iron, tin, and chromium, could be used in place of alum to give madder-based pigments of various other colors.

In 1826, the French chemist Pierre-Jean Robiquet found that madder root contained two colorants, the red alizarin and the more rapidly fading purpurin.

The subsequent discovery (made by Broenner and Gutzhow in 1871) that anthracene could be abstracted from coal tar further advanced the importance and affordability of alizarin's artificial synthesis.

[14] The synthetic alizarin could be produced for a fraction of the cost of the natural product, and the market for madder collapsed virtually overnight.

Alizarin, as a dye, has been largely replaced today by the more light-resistant quinacridone pigments developed at DuPont in 1958.

[17] Alizarin Red is used in a biochemical assay to determine, quantitatively by colorimetry, the presence of calcific deposition by cells of an osteogenic lineage.

[19] In clinical practice, it is used to stain synovial fluid to assess for basic calcium phosphate crystals.

[19] In geology, it is used as a stain to differentiate the calcium carbonate minerals, especially calcite and aragonite in thin section or polished surfaces.