• A scene from the old town of Biskra, Algeria, taken around 1900. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    A scene from the old town of Biskra, Algeria, taken around 1900. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
  • The Kremlin, Moscow, from 1900. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    The Kremlin, Moscow, from 1900. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
  • A cruise ship landing off the coast of Algiers, 1896. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    A cruise ship landing off the coast of Algiers, 1896. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
  • The Eddystone Lighthouse at Plymouth, Devon, England, around 1889-1911. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    The Eddystone Lighthouse at Plymouth, Devon, England, around 1889-1911. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
  • A steam train runs through the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, 1901. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    A steam train runs through the Gotthard Tunnel in Switzerland, 1901. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
  • Street food in Naples, Italy, 1899. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.
    Street food in Naples, Italy, 1899. Courtesy Swiss Camera Museum.

The 1890s in colour: Photochrome images shed light on life 100 years ago

John Dennehy
John Dennehy

July 06, 2016

  • English
  • Arabic

Hans Jakob Schmid was a Swiss lithographer who in the 1880s perfected a way of manually adding colour to black and white images. Known as Photochromes, they became wildly popular in the 1890s when true colour photography was still commercially unviable.

Schmid’s company, Photoglob, sold individual Photochromes and they were also available in travel albums featuring the work of Félix Bonfils, Jean Pascal Sébah and William Henry Jackson. They became so popular that the company licensed the process to others, such as the Detroit Photographic Company in the United States and the Photochrom Company of London.

Now more than 500 Photochromes are on display in Switzerland, representing a unique look at turn-of-the-century Europe, North Africa, North America and Asia.

• A Tour of the World in Photochromes runs at the Swiss Camera Museum in Vevey, Switzerland, until August 21. For more information see www.cameramuseum.ch.

John Dennehy is deputy editor of The Review.

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