Lot 141: CHARLES CROS (1842-1888)

Valenciennes lace on purple satin, March 1877
experimental trichrome carbon print
facsimile annotation 'échelle [scale] de 10 centimètres' in margin
image 4 1/4 x 2 7/8in. (10.6 x 7.3cm.); sheet 12 5/8 x 9 7/8in. (32 x 25cm.)

EARLY COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

A RARE INCUNABLE FROM THE DAWN OF COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

1867 marked the beginning of Cros's research on subtractive colour theories and at the 7 May 1869 session of the Société française de Photographie, both Cros and Louis Ducos du Hauron announced similar variations of the three-colour process, the basis of modern colour photography. In this example, one can clearly identify the three separate colours used in assembling the finished print: cyan, magenta and yellow.

In the spring of 1877, Cros was invited by the Duke of Chaulnes to his Château de Sablé by the river Sarthe. The Duke was a strong supporter of Cros's experimentation in colour photography and financed his research, including the use of a laboratory. While working at Sablé, Cros wrote to his sister Henriette on 8 March, "Demain on commence le tirage d'une valenciennes sur satin violet, à titre d'essai." [Tomorrow we begin the print of a valenciennes lace on violet satin as an experiment.] 1

The selection of a fragment of lace for this experiment is highly evocative. This subject refers back to some of the earliest photogenic drawings made in the late 1830s by William Henry Fox Talbot -- the first photographs on paper. The filigree of the white lace is precisely delineated against the rich colour of the satin background. Cros has succeeded in rendering both colour and fine detail.

Other experimental works by Cros are known in the collections of the Institut national d'histoire de l'art and Bibliothèque centrale, Muséum d'histoire naturelle. Auction records show no other examples of Cros's photographs.

1 C. Cros, Oeuvres complètes, J.J. Pauvert (ed.), Paris, 1964.

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