Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron

{{Short description|French pioneer of colour photography (1837–1920)}}

Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron (8 December 1837 – 31 August 1920) was a French pioneer of color photography.

{{Infobox person

| image = LoísDeucòs.jpg

| caption = Louis Ducos du Hauron, photographed on an Autochrome plate in 1910. The Lumière Brothers' Autochrome process was based on one of the several color photography methods he patented in 1868.

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1837|12|8|df=y}}

| birth_place = Langon, Gironde, France

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1920|8|31|1837|12|8|df=y}}

| death_place = Agen, Lot-et-Garonne, France

| known_for = Color photography

}}

Personal life

He was born in Langon, Gironde and died in Agen.

Photography

After writing an unpublished paper setting forth his basic concepts in 1862, he worked on developing practical processes for color photography on the three-color principle, using both additive and subtractive methods.{{cite news |title=Lumière Jubilee. |quote=The idea was patented as early as 1864 [sic—actually 1868] by a now forgotten Frenchman named Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron. |publisher=Time |date= 18 November 1935 }}{{cite journal|editor1-last=Solbert|editor1-first=Oscar N.|editor2-last=Beaumont|editor2-first=Newhall|editor3-last=Card|editor3-first=James G.|title=Forgotten Pioneers IV: Louis Ducos Du Hauron (1837–1920)|journal=Image, Journal of Photography of George Eastman House|date=April 1952|volume=1|issue=6|page=2|url=http://image.eastmanhouse.org/files/GEH_1952_01_06.pdf|access-date=21 June 2014|publisher=International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House Inc.|location=Rochester, N.Y.|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304084058/http://image.eastmanhouse.org/files/GEH_1952_01_06.pdf|archive-date=4 March 2016}}{{cite book|author=Dr. Carl Finch|title=Photo-Era, The American Journal of Photography|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BM5LAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA281|volume=45|year=1920|publisher=New England Photo Era Publishing Company|pages=281–282|chapter=Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron, In Memoriam}} In 1868 he patented his ideas (French Patent No. 83061) and in 1869 he published them in Les couleurs en photographie, solution du problème. The discovery of dye sensitization by Hermann Wilhelm Vogel in 1873 greatly facilitated the initial three-color analysis on which all of Ducos de Hauron's methods depended.{{cite journal|last1=Newhall |first1=Beaumont |title=An 1877 Color Photograph |journal=Image, Journal of Photography of George Eastman House |date=May 1954 |volume=III |issue=5 |pages=33–34 |url=http://image.eastmanhouse.org/files/GEH_1954_03_05.pdf |access-date=15 July 2014 |publisher=International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House Inc. |location=Rochester, N.Y. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140720233757/http://image.eastmanhouse.org/files/GEH_1954_03_05.pdf |archive-date=20 July 2014 }} Prior to Vogel's discovery, Ducos du Hauron photographed the green and orange-red-filtered components by making use of a color sensitization phenomenon discovered by Edmond Becquerel in 1840, but very long exposures in the camera were required.

The most widely reproduced of his surviving color photographs is the View of Agen, an 1877 image of a landscape in southern France, printed by the subtractive assembly method he pioneered. Several different photographs of the view from his attic window, one dated 1874, also survive, as do later views taken in Algeria, still life subjects, reproductions of paintings and art prints, and at least two portraits of uncertain date.

In 1891, he introduced the anaglyph stereoscopic print, the "red and blue glasses" type of 3-D print. Although others had earlier applied the same principle to drawings or used it to project images onto a screen, he was the first to reproduce stereoscopic photographs in the convenient form of anaglyph prints on paper."[http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/anaglyph.htm A History of Photography, by Robert Leggat: ANAGLYPHS]"

Gallery

File:Louis Ducos du Hauron - Composition aux dahlias.jpg|Still life with dahlias, 1869

File:Direct Print 1869.jpg|Color print made from three direct photograms, 1869 or 1870

File:1873 Oil painting Ducos Du Hauron.png|Reproduction of an oil painting, 1873

File:1875 Agen un Faubourg Ducos Du Hauron.png|View of Agen, 1875.

File:1877 March 14 Agen Ducos Du Hauron.jpg|"A hovel in our neighbourhood", Agen, dated 14 March 1877.

Image:Duhauron1877.jpg|View of Agen, France, showing the St. Caprais cathedral, 1877. Heliochrome (multilayer dichromated pigmented gelatin process). George Eastman House

File:1877 Agen Ducos Du Hauron Later print.jpg|A later 20th century print of the Agen photograph made from the original 1877 negatives. George Eastman House

File:1877 Agen Gardens Ducos Du Hauron.png|Garden view in Agen, 1877

File:1870s circa Agen Ducos Du Hauron.jpg|View of Agen, looking southwest, circa 1870s

File:Louis Ducos du Hauron - Still life with rooster - Google Art Project.jpg|Mounted birds, 1879

File:Algeria Ducos du Hauron.png|View of Algeria, 1880s or 1890s