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6 History of Three-Color Photography
L. Schrank (Phot. Korr, 1869, 5, 199) remarked that Baron Ransonnet in the year 1865 conceived the idea of three-color printing and attempted the same with several photographic experiments, which were, however, without results. He proposed to isolate the fundamental colors by the 'complementary colors' of light niters, and to print from such negatives, and tried, for instance, to expose behind yellow liquid cells. But in spite of very long exposures and a wide aperture apparatus, there showed not the slightest trace of an image. This and other failures caused the designer not to follow this any further (Schrank. loc. cit.)."
After summarizing the publications of du Hauron, Collen and Clerk Maxwell, Eder says : "Since the work of the Viennese, Baron Ransonnet, especially interested me, I sought for authoritative documents which would make possible a conclusion whether or when he actually made successful practical work in the domain of three-color printing. After Baron Ransonnet's return from his journey to China, which as a member of the Imperial East Asian expedition he had participated in, he busied himself, since he was a painter and draughtsman, with the reproduction and multiplication of the sketches of his journey and tried chalk drawings on stone. In the beginning of the sixtieth decade he became acquainted with the Viennese lithographer Haupt, who inducted him into the technique of mezzotint and stump on stone ; in this manner he worked assiduously and executed therewith (without the help of photography) yellow, red and blue stones, which by superposition gave good wash drawings. His color stones he handed over to Johann Haupt to print; as the results did not please him, he superimposed a black wash key plate and a brown tone plate. The first of Ransonnet's trial prints is in my possession; it was most kindly handed to me by Herr Haupt. This is a Chinese temple printed from five plates. In order to determine accurately the date of the preparation Herr Haupt carefully examined his ledgers, and the first work of this kind is assignable to August 18, 1875, since on that date there is booked the bill for 137 examples. Chinese temple, 5 colors. The illustration is very interesting and boldly executed ; another lithographer might perhaps have required fifteen plates, whilst Ransonnet, obviously guided by the idea of three-color printing, attained the same result with three main colors and two correcting plates. It should be recognized, therefore, that actual, historically authentic proof of the use of photographic three-color printing can not be here perceived, since such proofs are not authenticated to him, whilst actually photographic three-color prints were executed in 1869, and were shown in the French Society by Ducos du Hauron (see Phot. Korr, 1869, 5, 199). The picture of the spectrum, presented by Ducos du Hauron as test, is certainly far from perfect, yet nevertheless is a confirmation of his contentions."