ca.1895 French photochrom MEIDAN (AL-MIDAN) QUARTER, DAMASCUS, SYRIA (#127)

When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

ca.1895 French photochrom MEIDAN (AL-MIDAN) QUARTER, DAMASCUS, SYRIA (#127):
$20.99

Boulanger_127 ca.1895 French photochrom MEIDAN (AL-MIDAN) QUARTER, DAMASCUS, SYRIA (#127)

Photochrom titled Faubourg du Meidan a Damas, pagesize 24 x 32 cm, image size 14.5 x 21 cm. From: Autour duMonde - Aquarelles - Souvenirs de Voyages, Paris, L. Boulanger,editeur.

Clickimage or here to view larger (also called the Aäc process)prints are colorized images produced from black-and-whitephotographic negatives via the direct photographic transfer of anegative onto lithographic printing plates. The process isproperly considered a photographic variant of chromolithography,a broader term referring to color lithography in general.

History

The process was invented in the 1880s by HansJakob Schmid (1856–1924), an employee of the Swiss companyOrell Gessner Füssli, a printing firm with a history extendingback into the 16th century. Füssli founded the stock companyPhotochrom Zürich (later Photoglob Zürich AG) as the businessvehicle for the commercial exploitation of the process and bothFüssli and Photoglob continue to exist today. From the mid 1890son the process was licensed by other companies including theDetroit Photographic Company in the US and the Photochrom Companyof London.

The photochrom process was most popular in the1890s, when true color photography was first being developed butwas still commercially impractical.

In 1898 the US Congress passed the PrivateMailing Card Act which allowed private publishers to producepostcards. These could be mailed for one cent each — the letterrate at the time was two cents. Thousands of photochrom prints,usually of cities or landscapes, were created and sold aspostcards and it is in this format that photochrom reproductionsbecame most popular. The Detroit Photographic Company reportedlyproduced as many as seven million photochrom prints in some years,and ten to thirty thousand different views were offered.

After World War One, which brought an end tothe craze for collecting Photochrom postcards, the chief use ofthe process was printing posters and art reproductions, and thelast Photochrom printer operated up to 1970.

Process

A tablet of lithographic limestone, known as a"litho stone," is coated with a light-sensitive coating,comprising a thin layer of purified bitumen dissolved in benzene.A reversed half-tone negative is then pressed against the coatingand exposed to daylight for a period of 10 to 30 minutes insummer, up to several hours in winter. The image on the negativeallows varying amounts of light to fall on different areas of thecoating, causing the bitumen to harden and become resistant tonormal solvents in proportion to the amount of light that fallson it. The coating is then washed in turpentine solutions toremove the unhardened bitumen and retouched in the tonal scale ofthe chosen color to strengthen or soften the tones as required.Each tint is applied using a separate stone bearing theappropriate retouched image. The finished print is produced usingat least six, but more commonly from 10 to 15, tint stones.

Buyer pays shipping at cost. I prefer payment by PayPal, but I\'llalso accept any other payment method and currency (except directpayment by credit card) that is convenient for buyer. I combineshipping of multiple items.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SHIPPING: Price quoted with sale isfor surface mail to European countries. Please don\'t pay beforeyou receive invoice from me. If shipping address is within EuropeI recommend surface mail, you don\'t gain much time with airmail,it is just more expensive.