1133
and Pizzighelli’s claims to their invention in the Journal
of the Photographic Society in 1930.
To demonstrate the fi neness of the grain structure
of their silver chloride plates, Eder and Pizzighelli
made reduced size positives from existing collodion
negatives by their friend Victor Angerer, the well-known
Viennese portrait photographer. These were exhibited
at the twentieth anniversary exhibition of the Vienna
Photographic Society in 1881. What caused especial
interest amongst those seeing these images for the fi rst
time was the hitherto unavailable range of print colours
which the two pioneers had produced by using a range
of different developers. In Edward Epstean’s translation
of Eder (1945) the colours are described:
The warmest bright red shades were developed with
hydroquinone and ammonium carbonate, the brownish
tones with ammonium ferro-citrate, the greenish brown
tones with alkaline gallic acid solution, and so forth...
This diapositive exhibit was awarded the gold-enamel
medal by the Vienna Photographic Society.
Pizzighellis and Eder’s work was further developed
by Dr. Ernst Just in 1882, and by Leon Warnerke in
1889.
In his role as head of the army photographic depart-
ment, Pizzighelli was clearly an infl uential fi gure. It
was to him that Adolphe Steinheil brought his newly
computed aplanatic lens set for testing in 1881. The
aplanat design had been something with which Stein-
heil had been working since the late 1860s, producing
lenses which were virtually free of both chromatic and
spherical aberrations, and which offered a very fl at
fi eld—characteristics which were essential for much of
the work in which Pizzighelli’s unit was engaged.
Amongst many texts, Pizzighelli wrote two manuals
on photography—Anleitung zur Photographie für An-
fänger published in 1890, and Handbuch der Photogra-
phie. Für Amateure und Touristen, published in 1892.
After a lengthy military career—achieving the rank of
colonel—he retired to Florence in 1895, where he began
an enduring relationship with the Società Fotografi ca
Italiana, eventually become a director and later presi-
dent. He died in Florence in 1912, at the age of 63.
John Hannavy
See also: Huebl, Baron Arthur Freiherr von; Evans,
Frederick H.; Willis, William; and Eder, Joseph
Maria.
Further Reading
Eder, Josef Maria, History of Photography, translated by Edward
Epstean, New York: Dover Publications, 1945.
Pizzighelle, Giuseppe, Anleitung zur Photographie für Anfänger,
Berlin: Knapp, 1890.
——, Handbuch der Photographie. Für Amateure und Touristen,
Berlin: Knapp, 1892.
PLATEAU, JOSEPH ANTOINE
FERDINAND (1801–1883)
Belgian physicist, inventor of the phenakistiscope
Joseph Plateau was born in Brussels, Belgium, in- He became an orphan at fourteen. A pupil at the
Atheneum, Brussels 1817–22, he was much infl uenced
by his teacher Adolphe Quetelet. Quetelet would later
found the periodical ‘Correspondence mathematique
et physique,’ in which Plateau’s technical papers were
published. Plateau enroled in the Philosophy Faculty
of the University of Liège in 1822. In 1823–24 he ob-
tained diplomas in art and law. Fascinated by chemistry,
Plateau carried out his own experiments and in 1824
obtained the Diploma in Physical and Mathematical
Sciences. He became a mathematics teacher in 1827,
and had soon published a paper on optical perception,
and designed instruments for perception experiments.
His 1829 doctoral thesis, ‘Dissertation on Several Prop-
erties of Impressions Produced by Light on the Organ
of Sight,’ includes observations on colour theory, and
also anorthoscopic (distorted) drawings which appear
normal when viewed through a spinning, slotted disc.
The anorthoscope was marketed in 1836.
In 1830 Plateau moved to Brussels, teaching physics
1833–34. By late 1832 he had invented the phenakis-
tiscope, or phénakisticope [original spelling]—from
phenax -”deceptive” and skopeo, “I look at.” An almost
identical device, the stroboscope, was invented simul-
taneously by Austrian physicist Prof. Simon Stampfer.
Plateau’s instrument comprised a disc with a small
central hole, mounted on a handle so that it could spin
freely. Each disc had small equidistant radial apertures
around the circumference and pictures on one side.
The disc was spun with the pictures facing a mirror,
and the moving images viewed through the slots, by
refl ection. Other versions of the device comprised two
discs on the same shaft, one with slots and the other
containing a sequence of images. When the two discs
rotated, an animated picture was seen by viewing the
picture disc through the slots in the shutter disc. Most
of the animation sequences were drawn in a cycle, a
continuous fl ow with no beginning or end. Plateau’s
fi rst subject was a line drawing of a pirouetting dancer,
in sixteen positions.
Versions with a variety of names, including Phantas-
mascope and Fantascope, were sold commercially as a
philosophical toy by various publishers in France and
England, with discs featuring a wide range of imagina-
tive animated drawings, including abstract designs of
coloured balls. Plateau himself received no fi nancial
reward for his invention.
Within a few years Plateau had produced an improved
version, with backlit pictures on translucent varnished
paper, designed and geared in such a way that the optical