Solution générale du Problème de la Photographie des Couleurs

1869. CROS, Charles. Solution générale du Problème de la Photographie des Couleurs. 12 pp. Tall 8vo, 235 x 150 mm., bound in later three-quarter brown morocco over marble boards, the wrappers bound in. Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1869. First edition. A fine copy of this landmark in the history of colour photography. "It is curious that he, working at the same time as Du Hauron, and absolutely independently, worked on three color photography. On December 2, 1867, he presented to the French Academy of Sciences a sealed package, containing a report of his experiments, which had as their object the production of the three separation negatives and their synthesis for three-color photography. He kept his process secret, however, until it became known that Du Hauron had patented his three-color process on November 23, 1868. It was only after Du Hauron published the first of a series of articles in the journal Le Gers (March 1869) on this same subject of three-color photography that Cros was induced to make his findings public. On February 25, 1869, Cros published in the French journal Les Mondes an article on the solution of the problem of photography in colors (entitled "Solution du probleme de la photographie des couleurs") which also appeared as a pamphlet." - Eder, History of photography, pp. 648--9. From the library of Arnold Crane. Purchased from Lucien Goldschmidt, with his handwritten note that it was bound by Huser. Some rubbing with loss to extremities.