The Autochrome Plate of 50 Years Ago

A French Patent of 1808 by Ducos du Hauron describes how a screen of fine colored lines could be ruled upon a glass plate with an emulsion on top and exposed and reversed to obtain a color transparency. The screen could be a mosaic of many substances such as glass particles, yeast cells or even microbes dyed the three colors. It is easier to make a mosaic than to rule fine lines on glass. Louie Lumiere, who invented the claw and three-cornered cam mechanism for cameras and projectors, used starch grains from potatoes to make the mosaic. The plates, which he called Autochromes, were produced and sold all over the world from about 1908 until the late 1930s when modern color films made the very slow Autochrome system obsolete. (A description of Autochrome is included in a paper by Glenn E. Matthews, “Photography in Natural Colors,” which appeared in the February 1931 issue of the Journal, pp. 188–219.)

Print ISSN

0361-4573

Published

1966-12

Content type

Original Research

DOI

10.5594/J17938