Ives Kromskop World's First Commercial Colour Photos

Catalogue number #545846940

Ives's Krõmskõp with Slide Boxes	Ives's Krõmskõp Showing Internal Filters	Photograpg of Strawberries viewed through Krõmskõp	Photo Set of Strawberries	Packaging	Name Plate and Serial Number 57	Ives's Krõmskõp	Ives's Krõskõp Photo and Box	Ives's Krõmskõp Filters	Miniature Portrait	Photo Apple Blossom 1	Photo Apple Blossom 2

Description:

Ives's patent Krõmskõp viewer serial number 57 with seven sets of the World's first colour photographs (also each with the number 57 written on them). The oak stereo viewer has three 'external' filters red, blue and green plus two internal filters of cyan and green (different shade) plus a mirror in the front to angle the light entering the viewer from the front. The viewer can be raised and adjusted to angle the whole towards the light source. The black and white stereo glass photos - Kromograms - come in sets of three and were taken simultaneously with a special camera through three sets of coloured filters (blue, red and green). They are then reassembled into the colour photo through the viewer which superimposes the three sets of images seen through the combination of filters. It is not easy to get the external lighting correct or to superimpose the images exactly - there is an adjusting screw on the side, one accessed through a hole in the rear using a screwdriver and 'a finger adjustment for the front image through a slit in the brass guide. If you get the lighting slightly wrong you end up with blue strawberries! (I illustrate the problem with two images of a vase of flowers - sorry the better one is out of focus but one cannot always achieve everything at once!) With practice I got better at it (I think!) Photographing the result through one eyepiece was even harder and the illustrations are the best I could manage. The first colour photo was made by the Scottish scientist and mathematician James Clark Maxwell in 1861 photographing a piece of tartan through filters and reassembling the colours by projecting the three image through coloured filters on to a screen. Ives's patent was the first commercial application of this principle and hence the photographs he marketed were the World's first true commercial colour photographs. From Pearson's Magazine, December 1897 "The Newest Marvel of Science" "For many years photographers, amateur and professional, of a scientific turn of mind, have been trying to solve the problem of colour photography. But to reproduce the colours of Nature by any process at all similar to that employed in black and white photography is physically impossible, and like the problem of perpetual, motion, might as well be once and for all abandoned as insoluable. For consider for one moment the composition of a photographic print, whether silver or platinum. It is simply a deposit of the metal in a finely divided state, distributed according to the light and shade of the original obect. Such metallic deposit can only have its own peculiar monochromatic (one colour) tints, and cannot under any circumstances assume the varied colours of the rainbow. Many attempts have been made in oher ways to obtain by mechanical means photographs in colour, but, till the coming of Mr. Frederic Ives from America, very little success has been attained. This gentleman, however, has perfected a method of photography, or, rather, of recording by means of photographic films the actual colours of the objects before the camera. through the agency of Krõmskõp, an optical instrument designed by Mr Ives, these records can be so arranged that when viewed through the instrument the objects photographed are presented to the eye in their natural colours, with the added realism of stereoscopic relief. In fact, they are absolutely lifelike. they may be exhibited at any time, and are permanent for all time." For more information search "Frederic Ives Kromskop" on Google.The viewers are exceptionally rare and I suspect the photos even rarer but having one without the other is 'useless' To achieve the "magic" you need both. The images are Strawberries, Groceries, Overturned Basket of Fruit,Apple Blossoms, Blue Butterfly (one frame cracked but doesn't effect the image), Miniature Portrait, Hampstead Heath Cottages (one frame cracked again minimal effect on the resultant colour image. The Viewer is in nearly pristine condition with all original polish. There is some scratching and marking on the original brass lacquer. One of the five filters - the front green one is cracked down the centre. If one must have any filter cracked this is the one (rather than either of the two horozontal filters on the top of the viewer) and the centre is the place to crack it as it has zero effect on the viewing of the photographs. Size height 7.0" (180 mm) width 6.5" (164 mm) length 9" (230 mm) length with detachable eye shade 11.5" (285 mm) This is an exceptionally rare "World First" piece of museum quality. Transport at cost by arrangement.

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