1075
Photochrom was later adapted to offset lithography
and produced excellent screenless color lithographs in
various art books published between WW I and WW
II (e.g., Gottfried Wälchli: Martin Disteli Romantische
Tierbilder, Zürich/Leipzig, Verlag Amstutz & Herdeg,
1940). The last Photochrom operator, Frédéric Wälti,
retired at the age 81 as recently as 1970.
The French Process
The Swiss photochrom process should not be confused
with the similarly named multi-color process introduced
by Léon Vidal in France in 1872. The “photochrome,”
often anglicized “photochromy,” was fi rst seen in the
photographic exhibition at the Palais de l’Industrie in
Paris in 1874. The prints were much like chromolitho-
graphs, except that the base illustration (key plate) was
a photograph usually printed by the woodburytype
process.
In other cases, the colors were applied in sections
(selected manually) made by the carbon transfer process.
These photochromes, never achieved the realistic effect
of the Swiss process but they were suitable for printing
reproductions of crowns, diamonds, and other precious
objects from the Louvre and other French institutions.
Fine examples can be seen in Paul Dalloz’ Trésor
Artistique de la France, 1ère série, (Paris, Moniteur
Universel, 1883).
Luis Nadeau
See also: Vidal, Léon; Poitevin, Alphonse; Photoglob
Zurich/Orell Fussli & Co.; Postcard; and Photography
and Reproduction.
Further Reading
Burdick, Jefferson R., The Handbook of Detroit Publishing Co.
Postcards, Essington, PA: Hobby Publications, 1954.
Fritz, Georg (E.J. Wall, trans.), Photo-Lithography, London:
Dawbarn and Warn, 1896, 20, 75
Hesse. La chromolithographie et la photochromie-lithographie,
Paris: French ed., by A. Mouillot & C. Lequatre, 1902.
Hughes, Jim, The Birth of a Century: Early Color Photographs of
America. London; New York: Tauris Parke Books, 1994.
Lowe, James L., and Ben Papell, Detroit Publishing Company
Collector’s Guide. Newton Square, PA: Deltiologists of
America, 1975.
Ogonowski, E., La photochromie. Tirage d’épreuves photogra-
phiques en couleurs, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1891.
Read-Miller, Cynthia (ed.), Main Street U.S.A., in Early Pho-
tographs: 113 Detroit Publishing Co. Views, New York:
Published for Henry Ford Museum & Greenfi eld Village,
Dearborn, Mich. by Dover Publications, 1988.
Stechschulte, Nancy Stickels, The Detroit Publishing Company
Postcards: A Handbook for Collectors of the Detroit Publish-
ing Company Postcards including checklists of the regular
numbers, contracts, Harveys, miscellaneous art cards, the
50,000 series, sets, Little Photostint Journeys, mechanical
postcards, the panoramas, and many others, Big Rapids:
Michigan, N.S. Stechschulte, 1994.
Vidal, Léon, La photographie des couleurs par impressions
pigmentaires superposée, Paris, 1893.
——, Traité pratique de photochromie, Paris, 1903.
Weber, Dr Bruno, “Rund um die Welt in Photochrom.” In
Deutschland um die Jahrhundertwende, edited by Helga
Königsdorf and Bruno Weber, 145–150. Zurich, 1990.
——, “With the Photochrom on Five Continents.” The PhotoHis-
torian, no. 133 (2001), supplement, 10 pp. Translated from
the German by Steven F. Joseph.PHOTOGALVANOGRAPHY
The name of this photomechanical process came from
Duncan C. Dallas, at one time manager of the Patent
Photo-Galvanographic Company, a short-lived printing
and publishing fi rm set up for the exploitation of an
English patent granted to Paul Pretsch (1808–1873),
an Austrian photographer and inventor.
Paul Pretsch arrived in London in 1854 and took out
an English Patent, No. 2373, dated Nov. 9, 1854, for
“Improvements in producing Copper and other Plates
for Printing” In the following year he formed the Pat-
ent Photo-Galvanographic Company with a number of
partners, including Roger Fenton (1819–1869), as the
chief photographer.
Commencing in December 1856, they published a
serial portfolio, Photographic Art Treasures, or Nature
and Art Illustrated by Art and Nature. This was the fi rst
photographically engraved reproductions of works of
art. There were fi ve issues published, each contain-
ing four plates, the last publication appearing in early- Their intaglio process, which was the fi rst to
utilize the reticulation of gelatin, was based in part on
W.H.F. Talbot’s 1852 photoglyphic engraving patent
and produced plates often heavily retouched by hand
engravers—a common practice in the printing indus-
try at the time. Nevertheless, many of the plates were
exceedingly good, considering the state of the printing
technology at the time.
At a meeting of the Photographic Society of London
in June 1856, Pretsch exhibited specimens of his work in
various stages and read an interesting paper on “Photo-
galvanography, or Engraving by Light and Electricity,”
in which he explained the principles and applications of
his process, founded on the peculiar properties of animal
glue (gelatin) mixed with chemical ingredients so that it
can be made to swell or shrink to produce images that
could be turned into intaglio plates. In the course of
discussion Pretsch stated that the granular appearance
of the matrices was due more to the formation of silver
chromate rather than to the iodide (Phot. Journal, vol.
3, 58). This chemically induced granularity is interest-
ing and indeed questionable as more recent methods
of photogalvanography and collotype printing used the
effect of elevated temperature during the drying stage
of the matrix.