COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2497, 22 March 1881, Page 4

COLOUR PHOTOGRAPHS.

A few days ago the rooms of the Dilletanti Club, in Argyle-street, London, were thrown open for an exhibition of specimens of a new development of photographic art to be known as colour photography. The invitation was so widely accepted, upwards of a thousand people assembling in the rooms, that some difficulty was in the way of an earnest inquirer after a new thing. But it was in the end possible to get near the specimens ranged along the walls, and the inspection fully repaid the endeavor. What the new process aims at, and, judgiug from the portraits on view, perfectly {accomplishes, is to reproduce by the action of the sun the tints in face or dress of the sitter. Ho w, this is done is not disclosed by the inventor, nor is it the particular business of the sitter. It seems sufficient that a result is produced, equal perhaps in its certainty and in artistic effect superior, to hand-painting or photograpy, at one third the cost, The genial features of Mr. Toole were prominent among the specimens of the portraits exhibited, and alike in fidelity or portraiture, and in the alternate raggedness and richness of attire affected by the comedian, the merits of the pictures were enthusiastically admitted. These portraits were the most noticed, because the best known. But in each was recognised the justice of the claim that the general effect closely resembles painting on ivory, the depth, richness, variety, and harmony of colour being exquisitely and fully reproduced.