Autochrome Lumière was the first commercially successful colour photographic process.
It was patented by Auguste and Louis Lumière in 1903 and made available to the public in 1907. Around 200 images derived by the Autochrome Lumière process are held by the Historic England Archive.
Here we look at some amazing English homes and gardens representing or witnessing some of the most important historical events.
The Lumières are more well-known for their pioneering cinematic filmmaking. However, they regarded this as a novelty and were more concerned with the family photographic plate business.
From the 1890s, the brothers experimented with colour photography, but it wasn’t until they developed the Autochrome process that colour photography eventually took off. Although it was relatively expensive, Autochrome Lumière plates were easy to use and remained the principal colour photography process until the 1930s.
Lumière’s amazing invention used a screen of minute grains of potato starch dyed red-orange, green and blue-violet layered over a sensitised glass plate. When exposed, only red, green and blue light reached the plate. When it was developed, a black-and-white negative was produced. When developed again, a black-and-white positive image was fixed behind the colour screen. When the plate was viewed held up to the light or with light projected through it, the combination of the positive black-and-white image and the colour screen resulted in a full-colour image.
Around 200 images derived by the Autochrome Lumière process are held by the Historic England Archive. The images reproduced here are from a collection of Autochromes of English gardens that were probably taken between 1910 and 1930 by an unknown photographer/s. Blooming flowers with their vibrant colours offered perfect subjects for this pioneering process.
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