Two new components have been identified in an early sample prepared according to the original recipe of Perkin, and perhaps even by Perkin himself around 1860--a new isomer of Perkin's mauveine B (designated as mauveine B2) together with a new mauveine compound (mauveine C)--and these compounds were synthesized again using starting materials chosen to reproduce Perkin's original synthesis and isolated by HPLC-DAD, identified by (1)H NMR, MS and their spectroscopic (UV/Vis and emission) and photophysical behaviour investigated.