Autochrome and Viewer for autochrome photographs

Author	Unknown
Title	[Woman standing on a staircase and leaning on a handrail]
Place	United States
Date	circa 1910
Register	02062-01
Manufacturer	L.A. Dubernet
Name	Nº 4 ½ Diascope for autochrome photographs
Place	New York (United States)
Date	circa 1908
Register	02062-02

The autochrome was a colour photographic procedure. It was patented by August and Louis Lumière in 1904 and went on sale in 1907. There had previously been other attempts by researchers to produce colour photographs, but they presented many problems. The procedure that the Lumière brothers came up with was the simplest one and the first with positive and commercially viable results. It was the best colour photography system until the 1930s and it was very popular among amateur and professional photographers. In 1913, the Lumière factory in Lyon was producing six thousand autochrome plates a day and continued to manufacture them until 1932. All the same, making autochromes was expensive and only affordable for the well-off. The emulsion process of the light-sensitive autochrome plate was very elaborate. Grains of potato starch played a key role; they were dyed in equal parts of vermilion, green and violet, and acted as colour filters. When they were exposed to light, the photographer developed the plate and the result was a glass plate slide. To view the image, one could place the plate against the light or place it in a Diascope viewer. This autochrome viewer was patented by the New York portrait photographer, B.J. Falk, and manufactured by L.A. Dubernet.

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