Most were considered relatively weak and extremely fugitive until 1804, when the English dye maker George Field[10] refined the technique of making a lake from madder by treating it with alum and an alkali.

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

In 1827, the French chemists Pierre-Jean Robiquet and Colin began producing garancine, the concentrated version of natural madder.

Purpurin is only present in the natural form of madder and gives a distinctive orange/red generally warmer tone that pure synthetic alizarin does not.

Because this synthetic alizarin dye could be produced for a fraction of the cost of the natural madder dye, it quickly replaced all madder-based colorants then in use (in, for instance, British army red coats that had been a shade of madder from the late 17th century to 1870, and French military cloth, often called "Turkey Red"[13]).

[citation needed] As all madder-based pigments are fugitive, artists have long sought a more permanent and lightfast replacement for rose madder and alizarin.