Cobalt blue
Cobalt blue in impure forms had long been used in Chinese porcelain, but it was independently discovered as a pure alumina-based pigment by Louis Jacques Thénard in 1802. Commercial production began in France in 1807. The first recorded use of "cobalt blue" as a color name in English was in 1777. The leading world manufacturer of cobalt blue in the 19th century was Benjamin Wegner's Norwegian company Blaafarveværket ("blue colour works" in Dano-Norwegian). Germany was also famous for production, especially the blue colour works ("Blaufarbenwerke") in the Ore Mountains of Saxony.
Cobalt
Alfred Werner, a Nobel-prize winning pioneer in coordination chemistry, worked with compounds of empirical formula [Co(NH)]Cl. One of the isomers determined was cobalt(III) hexammine chloride. This coordination complex, a typical Werner-type complex, consists of a central cobalt atom coordinated by six ammine orthogonal ligands and three chloride counteranions. Using chelating ethylenediamine ligands in place of ammonia gives tris(ethylenediamine)cobalt(III) chloride ([Co(en)]Cl), which was one of the first coordination complexes to be resolved into optical isomers. The complex exists in the right- and left-handed forms of a "three-bladed propeller". This complex was first isolated by Werner as yellow-gold needle-like crystals.