The Grand Canal by moonlight.
Image: Library of Congress
These postcards of Belle Époque Venice were printed by the Detroit Publishing Company using the Photochrom process, a time-consuming and exacting technique by which convincing layers of artificial color are applied to black and white photos and reproduced.
Invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid, an employee of a Swiss printing company, the closely guarded process begins with coating a tablet of lithographic limestone with a light-sensitive emulsion, then exposing it to sunlight under a photo negative for up to several hours.
The emulsion hardens in proportion to the level of exposure and the less hardened portions are removed with a solvent, forming a fixed lithographic image on the stone.
Successive litho stones are then prepared for each individual tint to be used in the final color image. A single Photochrom postcard might require over a dozen different tint stones.
Though the process was especially lengthy and painstaking back in Schmid's day, the end result was surprisingly lifelike color at a time when true color photography was just starting to be developed.
A view from the Campanile.
Image: Library of Congress
Doges' Palace.
Image: Library of Congress
Inside St. Mark's Basilica.
Image: Library of Congress
Gondolas and the Piazzetta di San Marco.
Image: Library of Congress
A procession in front of St. Mark's.
Image: Library of Congress
A concert in St. Mark's Square.
Image: Library of Congress
The Piazzetta.
Image: Library of Congress
Secco Marina in San Giuseppe.
Image: Library of Congress
Doges' Palace and the Piazzetta.
Image: Library of Congress
The island of San Giorgio Maggiore
Image: Library of Congress
The Three Bridges.
Image: Library of Congress
A procession over the Grand Canal.
Image: Library of Congress
Pesaro Palace on the Grand Canal.
Image: Library of Congress
The Grand Canal.
Image: Library of Congress
The Grand Canal and the Rialto Bridge.
Image: Library of Congress
Paradise Bridge.
Image: Library of Congress
The Rialto Bridge.
Image: Library of Congress
St. Mark's Square and the Campanile.
Image: Library of Congress
-
Curation:
-
Text:
MORE FROM RETRONAUT
Kindertransport: A desperate effort to save children from the Holocaust
The old-school lumberjacks who felled giant trees with axes
Antique mourning jewelry contained the hair of the deceased
Rosie the Riveter IRL: Meet the women who built WWII planes
The streets of 1970s New York City: A decade of urban decay
35 years ago, grief at the scene of John Lennon's murder
This WWII women's dorm was the hippest spot in town
Rarely seen images from the Walt Disney Archives
White sand, black gold: When oil derricks loomed over California beaches
Chicago in ruins: The unimaginable aftermath of the Great Fire of 1871
If Google Street View existed in 1911
Before the Holocaust, Nazis targeted so-called 'Gypsies'