Early attempt at colour photography discovered
Delft University of Technology has unearthed six glass slides (1890 – 1910), which represent one of the earliest attempts at colour photography. The slides were found during an inventory conducted by the Programme Tailor-Made Approach to Faculty Collections at the Imaging Physics department of the Faculty of Applied Sciences. To view the images, technician Thim Zuidwijk reconstructed a diffraction chromoscope, revealing vivid depictions of a vase with a floral motif and a still life of a fruit basket alongside a banana and a wrapped citrus fruit.
Vase and fruit basket
In the archive of the Imaging Physics department, six glass slides over a hundred years old have been found, carefully stored in a cardboard box. When held up to the light, the transparent plates reveal the outlines of images in the same iridescent colours as in a soap bubble. These glass slides are precursors to colour photographs from the early 20th century, which could only be viewed using a special device known as a diffraction chromoscope. Among the captured images are a butterfly, a painting, a vase with floral motifs, and a still life of a fruit basket next to a banana and a wrapped citrus fruit.
Colour photograph
To reveal the images on the transparent slides, technician Thim Zuidwijk replicated a diffraction chromoscope from the early 20th century. “When you place the transparent slides under a microscope, you can see rows of tiny stripes inside them. You might compare them to battlements,” Zuidwijk explains. “The distance between these stripes varies, and each distance bends red, green, or blue light in the same direction. The diffraction chromoscope captures the green, red, and blue light rays from the glass slides and combines them to create a colour photograph.”
The dawn of colour photography
In the early 1900s, ‘The Scientific Shop’ in the United States sold diffraction chromoscopes along with corresponding slides as a means to view colour photographs. Around the same time, the Lumière brothers introduced the autochrome process, a technique that proved so successful it is now regarded as the beginning of colour photography.
Imaging Physics
Delft University of Technology has a long history in imaging technologies. The Imaging Physics department serves as a hub for physics-driven innovation in imaging technologies and instrumentation. It is at the forefront of developing new imaging tools and methods for healthcare and the digital society.
