Album of 114 antique Photochrom Zurich prints, mainly Italy and Austria c1890 [Very Good] [Hardcover]

Description

This is a stunning collection of prints made using the Photocrom process and produced by Photocrom Zurich (now Photoglob Zurich AG). The subject matter is travel pictures of the Tyrol region of Austria and Italy, including Venice Verona, Milan and the Italian and Swiss Lakes. Most of the prints are approximately 17 x 22 cm but there are some a bit larger. Most are fully tinted - 5 plates, all of Italian churches, are untinted, and some of the townscapes have less colour than the rural scenes. Each picture in the album is neatly captioned by hand, and the caption is also printed on the print along with the P Z initials and the catalogue number. The prints are all in excellent condition, having been in the album since they were first acquired. The album has lost its spine although bits of it are loose inside the cover. Apart from that the album is very robust. There is nothing to date the album except the clothing style etc. It dates to around 1890. Photochrom, Fotochrom, Photochrome or the Aäc process is a process for producing colour images from a single black-and-white photographic negative via the direct photographic transfer of the negative onto lithographic printing plates. The process is a photographic variant of chromolithography. Because no colour information was preserved in the photographic process, the photographer would make detailed notes on the colours within the scene and use the notes to hand paint the negative before transferring the image through coloured gels onto the printing plates. Photochrom Zürich was the first company to undertake commercial exploitation of the process.