The so–called kolinsky sable–hair brushes used for watercolour or oil painting are actually manufactured from the hair of the Siberian weasel (or kolinsky – hence the name).
'Sable' is the name used in heraldry for the colour black.
The best–selling 1981 novel Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith (filmed in 1983 starring William Hurt and Lee Marvin) turns out to be about the smuggling of sable furs.
© Haydn Thompson 2018