318
plates concluded the same. Recent observations sug-
gest they were not. Rather, they were some form of
scattering color related to grain size. The verdict relates
to Lippmann’s color process and awaits electron micro-
scopic examination and other tests.
In any case, no practical color processes were con-
ceived until the decade of the 1860s and none succeeded
until almost 1900.
William R. Alschuler
See Also: Colour Theory and Practice: 1860–1910.
Further Reading
Alschuler, W. The Source and Nature of Inherent Color in Early
Photographic Processes, The Object Glass of Science Sym-
posium, Oxford: September, 2005 (in press).
Becker, W. B. Are These the World’s First Color Photographs?,
in American Heritage, 31/(4)/4-6, June/July 1980.
ibid, The Enduring Mystery of Levi Hill, in Camera Arts,
1/(1)/28–31, Jan.–Feb. 1981.
Becquerel, Edmond, Paris: in Annalles de Chimie et de Physique,
22/(3)/451, 1848.
Bellone, R. and Fellot, L., Histoire mondiale de la photographie
en couleurs (World History of Color Photography), Paris:
Hachette Realities, 1981.
Boudreau, Joseph, Color Daguerreotypes:Hillotypes Recreated,
in Pioneers of Photography, ed. Eugene Ostroff, Springfi eld,
Va.: Society of Photographic Engineers, 1987.
Burder,D, My First Twelve Months as a Daguerreotypist, in The
Daguerrean Annual, Pittsburg: 3–9, 2002–3 (Note: Burder
incorrectly says Becquerel, while his images are actually St.
Victor type; priv. comm. 2005).
Cheval, Francois, Photographies/Histoires Parallels: Collection
du Musee Niecephore Niepce (Photographs/Parallel Histories:
Collection of the Nicephore Niepce Museum, Paris: Somogy
editions d’art, 2000.
Coe, Brian, Color Photography: The First Hundred Years, Lon-
don: Ash and Grant, 1978.
Coote, Jack, Illustrated History of Color Photography, Surbiton:
Fountain Press, 1993.
Delimata, Joyce, Niecephore Niepce: une nouvelle image (a
new image), Chalon sur Saone: Societe des amis du musee
Nicephore Niepce, 1998.
Drolette, Dan, New Film Developments Cut Out the Fog, in
Photonics Spectra, 64–66, June, 2001.
Eder, Josef M., Geschichte der Photographie (History of Pho-
tography), Halle: Knapp, 1905 (3rd. ed.) and 1932 (4th ed.).
(Some color illustrations).
Eder, Josef M., History of Photography, transl. E. Epstein, New
York: Dover, 1978. (More widely available. Illustrations in
Black and White.)
Figuier, L., La Photographie, in Merveilles de la Science, Paris:
Furne, Jouvet, 1869.
Friedman, J.S., History of Color Photography, Boston: American
Photographic Publishing Co., 1944.
Frizot, Michel (ed.), A New History of Photography, Koln:
Konemann, 1999.
Hill, L.L., A Treatise of Heliochromy, New York: —, 1851.
Hofel, K. opten and Gohr, S., Farbe im photo (Color in Photog-
raphy), Koln: Josef-Haubrich-Kunsthalle, 1981 (exhibition
catalog).
Jacob, M. Color and the Daguerreotype, in The Daguerrean An-
nual, Pittsburg: The Daguerrean Society, 174–208, 1997.
Kepler, H. The Horrible Fate of Levi Hill, in Popular Photogra-
phy, 42ff., July 1994.
Marignier, J-L, and Ellenberger, Michel, L’Invention retrouvee
de la photographie (The Invention of Photography Rediscov-
ered), in Pour la Science, 232/36–43, February 1997.
Newhall, Beaumont, History of Photography, New York: Museum
of Modern Art, 1988.
Schaaf, L. J. Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot and the In-
vention of Photography, New Haven: Yale University Press,
1992.
Seebeck, J. in Goethe, J.W., Zur Farbenlehre, Stuttgart: Kohlham-
mer, 1955 (1817 ed.).
Sipley, Louis W., A Half Century of Color, New York: Macmil-
lan, 1951.
Wall, E.J., History of Three Color Photography, Boston: Ameri-
can Photographic Publishing Company, 1925.
Wiener, Otto, Color Photography by Means of Body Colors,
and Mechanical Color Adaptation in Nature, Washington,
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1898 (167–205 in Smithsonian
Report for 1896).
Zenker, O. Lehrbuch der photochromie (Hand book of Color
Photography), Berlin: self published, 1868.COLOR THEORY AND PRACTICE:
1860–1910
Processes (positive)
The 1860s was a decade of great conceptual advances
in color photography, which laid the foundations for
ultimate success, yet no practical results fl owed from
these advances for almost 30 years.
In that decade James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879)
was working on both the theory of color and on the
electromagnetic wave theory of light, the last great
triumph of classical (pre-Einsteinian) physics. At a
public lecture in 1861 he showed that full color images
could be made from a combination of 3 separate color
photographs. He chose a tartan ribbon as a subject,
and made black and white photographs through a red,
a green and a blue fi lter. These were developed into
negatives and then reversed into positives. The three
transparencies were then each projected through the
fi lters they were taken with, mounted in three lantern
slide projectors of a conventional sort. The images were
carefully superimposed on the projection screen and a
full color image resulted (of modest color quality). This
three-color separation process was not immediately
commercialized in photography (but see Frederick
Ives below).
There is one curious thing about this famous experi-
ment: it should not have worked! In 1861 there were
no fi lms sensitive to red or yellow light and most were
barely sensitive to green light. So how did the three
colors record to give a true color image? In 1961 Ralph
M. Evans showed that the red fi lter Maxwell used also
transmitted light in the ultraviolet, to which the fi lm was
sensitive, and which was well refl ected by the ribbon.
The fi lm was exposed until the negative was usable and