Chartreuse
Retired1951-1959
A shade of green-yellow color, it is a bright and lively color that is considered to be a tertiary color - meet Chartreuse. Produced by The Fiesta Tableware Company from 1951 to 1959, it is a fan favorite known for its ability to appear different depending on the lighting and other surrounding colors.
Production
Chartreuse was retired in 1959, so it is a hunt for secondhand pieces now. Fiesta Factory Direct is where the colors still being made are, if you are filling a set.
Shop Fiesta Factory Direct (opens in a new tab)Notes on Chartreuse
Chartreuse arrived in 1951 as part of Fiesta's mid-century reset, alongside Gray and Rose, replacing the 1930s palette. It's a yellow-green that behaves oddly under different light - genuinely so, not marketing copy. Under warm bulbs it leans yellow, under daylight it goes distinctly green, which is why two people can describe the same piece differently. Eight years, retired in 1959. The name came back for a Post 86 color in 1997 that's a much brighter, more acid green, so if you're searching listings, check the years rather than the name. Of the 1951 trio this is the one that most obviously dates a table to the fifties.
Using Chartreuse on a table
Chartreuse carries enough color to lead a table on its own. Use it for the plates and let quieter pieces do the rest; two or three settings of it go a long way. At L* 79 it is one of the paler glazes in the line: dark food reads sharply against it, pale food much less so. It nearly disappears against a white cloth (1.8:1), so it shows best on dark wood or a colored runner.
Below, 5 combinations built only from colors Fiesta has actually produced. Each says which rule it follows, and which pieces you can still buy today.
Buy these to go with it
Chartreuse was retired in 1959, but these are all in production now - the set you can actually finish buying.
Opposite on the wheel
Lavender sits roughly opposite Chartreuse in hue, which is the highest-contrast pairing the palette offers. The neutrals keep it from shouting.
All green
Every color here is from the green family, arranged light to dark. A single-family table reads calm and deliberate rather than busy.
- Sea Mist Green
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Your color Chartreuse, 1951-1959
- Forest Green
- Evergreen
Three-way split
Juniper and Heather sit about a third of the way around the color wheel from Chartreuse in each direction. Evenly spaced hues stay lively without any one taking over.
Next-door hues
These sit within about 55° of Chartreuse on the color wheel. Neighboring hues blend instead of competing, which suits a table you want to feel warm rather than sharp.
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Your color Chartreuse, 1951-1959
- Tangerine
- Forest Green
- Chocolate
Where Chartreuse sits in the line
Chartreuse took over from Green (Light) as Fiesta's green, and is lighter and more vivid than it - a complete change of direction rather than a reformulation (ΔE 41.1). In 1951 it arrived alongside Forest Green, Gray and Rose, 1951-1959 and took the place of Blue (Cobalt), Green (Light) and Old Ivory on the shelf. What else happened in 1951 →
Closest colors in the palette
Ranked by CIEDE2000 (ΔE) against Chartreuse. Under about ΔE 5 two colors are hard to tell apart side by side - useful when you are identifying an unmarked piece.
On the table alongside Chartreuse
10 colors were in production at the same time: