Visconti has released a line of pens over the last few years in the Van Gogh line where each pen is styled after a Van Gogh painting and uses the same palette. To accompany these pens, Visconti came up with six inks: Café Terrace at Night, Orchard in Blossom, Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman, Wheatfield with Crows, Souvenir de Mauve, and Wheatfield under Thunderclouds. Previously these inks were only available with the purchase of their matched pen, but the entire series has now been released and is available as a set of six or as individual bottles. This set was purchased by Well-Appointed Desk from Pen Boutique and I was the fortunate person assigned to reviewing them! Someone there must know I enjoy ink…
I love the colors in this series – it contains both bright, fun colors and office-safe gray and blue. The colors on the top of each box are good approximations of the ink.
All six inks have great shading on Tomoe River paper:
And even better shading on Cosmo Air Light paper:
I took a photo with both Tomoe River paper (on the right) and Cosmo Air Light paper (on the left) to show the differences – the gray and purple show the most color change. CAL brings out the blue undertones dramatically.
Kobe released a Van Gogh-inspired blue a few years ago – I was pleasantly surprised to see that it agrees well with the Visconti Wheatfield with Crows blue! It is a deep blue with a faint hint of a sheen.
I love the Old Vineyard with Peasant Woman grey ink. The undertones here are blue making the overall color more of a dusky purple. The camera shows a much stronger difference between these inks than in person.
Of course, the best ink in the series is Orchard in Bloom – purple is always the best. Visconti has produced a beautiful purple with this ink! It isn’t so light as to be illegible but it isn’t so dark that you can’t see the purple in your writing.
Wheatfield Under Thunderclouds is a fabulous bright leaf green – nearly a perfect match for my favorite bright green ink of all times – Scribo Verde Prato! This is a color that grabs your attention but doesn’t hurt your eyes when reading.
Souvenir de Mauve is also a very bright ink. Montegrappa Fuchsia and Monteverde Deep Magenta are very close, but Souvenir de Mauve is a touch brighter in writing, and there’s a touch of gold sheen even in small amounts of ink. Where was this ink when I was 8? I’ve kept this Mauve inked in a pen since I received the ink. A glow-in-the-dark pen in keeping with the 8-year-old theme.
Be careful with this Mauve – it does have the potential to stain very light-colored pens. However, the ink was very easy to clean up when compared to other highly saturated pinks.
I was surprised at the Café Terrace at Night orange ink. I thought it would be much closer to orange rather than yellow. Café is a great shading ink and close to Stipula Sapphron and Bungubox Sweet Potato Yellow – two of the best orange-yellow inks ever.
Here is a photo of the entire ink line – in my opinion, Visconti did a great job with these.
I am thrilled with this new lineup from Visconti! You can purchase the entire set for $114 from Pen Boutique or $18.95 for a single bottle – about $0.63 per mL. This puts the cost in the luxury category but not as high as Sailor and Montblanc special editions. For an ink line from Visconti that was previously only available with a high-priced pen, I am happy to accept that price.
DISCLAIMER: The items included in this review were purchased by the Well-Appointed Desk for the purposes of this review and I was not compensated to write this post. Please see the About page for more details.
