Photo-crayotypes and Chromatypes

[Geoff Barker]

I have just created a Wikipedia page for photo-crayotypes and chromatypes but the current focus is on Australian uses by photographers like Frederick Frith and Douglas Kilburn. If anyone has more research they can add from the UK that would be great. Happy to help if you are not using Wikipedia regularly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo-crayotype

[James McArdle]

Hi Geoff, very interested in this from the point of view of the solar camera/enlarger (on which I have recently created a Wikipedia article). Many photographers 1860s-1870s enlarged CDV  images life-size onto canvas and paper, subsequently to be painted over in oils or coloured in crayon. You describe life-size portraits by Kilburn in your WP article - do you feel it is likely that the solar camera was used in making a significant portion of such coloured portraits? Here's an article describing its quite early use (the device was patented 1860), by Edward Dalton of Sydney:

"A recent and valuable invention in in photography has been brought into successful application at Mr. Dalton'• establishment in George St. We refer to Lile enlargement of portraits, by means  of an instrument known as a solar oamera...." The Sydney Morning Herald, Fri, Nov 27, 1863, page 7

[Kim Timby]

Hi Geoff, It's great to have a new wikipedia article related to.colour in photography – thanks!

[Geoff Barker]

Hi Marcel, hope you are well. I talked to Noel a year or so ago and we discussed some issues relating Frith's portrait on Wikipedia. The book is a real treat. Cheers Geoff.

[Geoff Barker]

Hi Gael - I agree it would be great to see some comparisons as the process appears to have continued into the twentieth century. I'm still pretty much working from home but when I get back on site from Covid I'll follow up with the chromotypes and see if there are any existing conservation reports for the Frith examples in the Library.

[Gael Newton]

Thanks Geoff  IT would be great to have other examples in overseas archives to compare. Has a conservator looked at the composition of  chromotypes?   Gael

[Marcel Safier]

Hi Geoff, I helped out with a book on the Friths ("The Frith Family : Snips & Snaps. Nineteenth Century Portaitists, Miniaturists, Caricaturists and Photographic Artists" by Noel Tozer). Frederick's sister Letitia Davidson was a photographer, miniature painter and photo colourist. Cheers! Marcel