Orange (heraldry)

In heraldry, orange is a rarely used tincture except in Catalan, South African, French municipal and American Military heraldries. As a color, Orange should be used against metals in order not to contradict the rule of tincture. Orange is obviously different from Gules (red), but also (and especially) not to be confused with tenné (or tanné), which depicts the light-brownish color of tanned leather before slowly becoming a tincture of its own, along with carnation used for the depiction of white human skin.

Orange didn't receive a hatching pattern during medieval and renaissance times, and first was granted its pattern in Arthur Charles Fox Davies' Complete guide to heraldry, where it was given the "semy of exclamation points" consisting of a semé of vertical dashes (used on their own to indicate red) and dots (used on their own to indicate yellow).

A color used for orange in armorials should be, at first, rich and deep enough to clearly distinguish itself from both metals, Argent (white) and Or (yellow), but also from Gules (red), Tenné (light brown) and carnation (flesh-colour).

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