Documentation of the Orotone (Curt-Tone) process?

[Roger Hyam]

I've been making my own silver gelatine glass plates and am exploring ways to print and present positives.

I'm intrigued by historical orotones such as the ones produced by Edward S. Curtis in early 20th Century.

There are a few contemporary techniques employed to produce a positive on a glass with a gold/bronze background but my early attempts with these acrylic paint or faux gold leaf based methods look pretty tacky - more like a novelty mirror than the subtle works from the 1920s!

Is anyone aware of historical sources describing the orotone process as used pre WW2? The most detail I've found online refers to banana oil and bronze powder but I suspect that is apocryphal.

[Alan Hodgson]

Hi Roger. I believe banana oil and bronze powder was used in the past.

When I was at Ilford we did plates for a Centennial version of Curtis' work. We ended up using a gold metallic paint spray. As I recall the services of a motobike fuel tank artist.

I did publish quite a lot of stuff on this, some recently. Let me know if you are interested. Short one here

Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS HonFRPS FInstP

President of The Royal Photographic Society

Read the President’s News

[Roger Hyam]

Hi Alan,

I hadn't heard of the Curtis Centennial Project. When I google I mainly get people selling prints with the compelling project description on the back. Yes I'd be really interested to know more. Any reading you can pass my way would be most appreciated.

My heart does sink with mention of spray paint though. I thought black spray paint might be a way to back my ambrotypes but it required setting a spray booth (cardboard box) in the garden and multiple coats to get a finish. I switched to making them on black acrylic instead!

Thanks,

Roger

Alan Hodgson said:

Hi Roger. I believe banana oil and bronze powder was used in the past.

When I was at Ilford we did plates for a Centennial version of Curtis' work. We ended up using a gold metallic paint spray. As I recall the services of a motobike fuel tank artist.

I did publish quite a lot of stuff on this, some recently. Let me know if you are interested. Short one here

Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS HonFRPS FInstP

President of The Royal Photographic Society

Read the President’s News

[Alan Hodgson]

Hi Roger. An overview of the Curtis Centennial Project appeared in the BJP 06.10.99 pp16-17, followed by a short feature in The Times 11.10.99.

If your French is up to it there was a more detailed article in Le Photographe #1580 in December 2000 pp58-60 (we did an exhibition in Paris at that time).

Hopefully attached is our workflow diagram, from a paper I did for the RPS Digital Imaging Group.

Hope this helps.

Dr Alan Hodgson ASIS HonFRPS FInstP

President of The Royal Photographic Society

Read the President’s News

 

[John Marriage]

Hello Roger

This is parallel to your enquiry rather than a direct reply! There is another process for producing prints that look very like Orotones, but worked in a completely different way. Indeed, some prints of this sort have been mistakenly called Orotones even by museum professionals. The process was invented by Hanbeh Mizuno in Japan, around the same time as Curtis was flourishing; it is summarised at https://www.refracted.net/mizuno.html

Since I wrote that note, more evidence has come to light and I suspect (but can't prove) that all the glass-based examples (Type D in the note, which are the ones that could be mistaken for Orotones) date from after the death of the original inventor, and were probably made by his family, continuing the original business of his studio but with technical advances.

John Marriage

[Roger Hyam]

Fascinating John, Thank you .

I'm not sure I totally understand how the process worked. In my mind I have then negative sticking to the initial print. It sounds like a transferred gum bichromate print. Not something I'll rush to trying.

At the moment I'm exploring metallic gold acrylic sheet as a backing - a totally 21st Century solution.

Roger

[Richard Sullivan HonFRPS]

Over the years I have tried to find something on Orotone to no avail. It seems to have been a process named by Curtis himself. As suggested here, I suspect Curtis adapted a known process for applying paint etc.

This might be of some help:

 BRONZING SOLUTIONS FOR PAINTS.
I.
—The so-called “ banana solution ”
(the name being derived from its odor)

which is used in applying bronzes of various kinds, is usually a mixture of equal parts of amyl acetate, acetone, and benzine, with just enough pyr oxyline dissolved therein to give it body. Powdered bronze is put into a

bottle containing this mixture and the

paint so formea applied with a brush.
The thin covering of pyroxyline that is
left after the evaporation of the liquid
protects the bronze from the air and
keeps it from being wiped off by the
cleanly housemaid. Tarnished picture

frames and tarnished chandeliers to which a gold bronze has been applied from such a solution will look fresh and

new for a long time. Copper bronze as
well as gold bronze and the various col¬
ored bronze powders can be used in the
“banana solution” for making very
pretty advertising signs for use in the
drug store. Lettering and bordering
work upon the signs can be done with it.
Several very small, stiff painters’ brushes
are needed for such work and they must
Digitized by
490 PAINTS
be either kept in the solution when not in
use, or, better still, washed in benzine or
acetone immediately after use and put
away for future service. As the “banana
solution" is volatile, it must be kept well
corked.
II.—A good bronzing solution for paint
tins, applied by dipping, is made by dis¬
solving Syrian aspbaltum in spirits of
turpentine, etc., and thinning it down
with these solvents to the proper bronze
color and consistency. A little good
boiled oil will increase the adherence
From 1907 Henley's 20th Century Book of Recipes.

 

[Tony Tidswell]

I have been making Orotones (GoldTones, Curtones - whatever) for a couple of years and having fun printing from collodion negatives and calotypes by contact printing and using the carbon transfer process - this gives me an affordable way of making very large negatives up to 30 x 40cm and the ability to chose a pigment for the glop to suit the "gold" mixture for coating the emulsion.

It has been a long and steep learning curve, mostly to get the "gold" mixture right and authentic - but I am now just about happy with the results.

Curtis poured his gold coating I understand and I have read that he tried different varnishes to protect the coating, but the only contemporaneous comments I can find are that his workshop smelled of bananas (so does mine).

It is a couple of months since the last comment to this thread - does anyone have any new links or contacts please?

[Alan Hodgson]

Hi Tony. I have not worked on this for an age. Only written stuff about it. Have you found these folks? https://www.curtislegacyfoundation.org/resources-guide. Their work may be useful to you.

There was also some analytical work done on Australian Orotones by the late Alan Elliott.

Tony Tidswell said:

I have been making Orotones (GoldTones, Curtones - whatever) for a couple of years and having fun printing from collodion negatives and calotypes by contact printing and using the carbon transfer process - this gives me an affordable way of making very large negatives up to 30 x 40cm and the ability to chose a pigment for the glop to suit the "gold" mixture for coating the emulsion.

It has been a long and steep learning curve, mostly to get the "gold" mixture right and authentic - but I am now just about happy with the results.

Curtis poured his gold coating I understand and I have read that he tried different varnishes to protect the coating, but the only contemporaneous comments I can find are that his workshop smelled of bananas (so does mine).

It is a couple of months since the last comment to this thread - does anyone have any new links or contacts please?

[Tony Tidswell]

Hello Alan - many thanks for you response - I have studied information from the "Curtis Legacy Foundation" - I am grateful for the reference to Alan Elliot, I will save my pennies to subscribe to the RPS so I can search more (luckily I qualify for a discount).

Various spectral analysis exercises seem to confirm my notes about the composition of the "gold" coatings - I find that the only way to get the answers is to make many orotone plates myself with experimental permutations as the metal powders are all very different, more copper in the brass (or bronze), can cause problems later collodion was used to safeguard this I believe, I have used this but also have found some other techniques which seem to have potential.

Silver gelatin plates (Seed plates) seems to be the preferred way that Curtis worked, but I am using carbon transfer with natural pigments to create the image and then flowing the "gold" over this, so I hope to circumvent some problems - I understand Curtis gold toned his work (or other toning techniques) to replace the silver.

Is there any way I can access some of the RPS files?

Thank you

Tony

Alan Hodgson said:

Hi Tony. I have not worked on this for an age. Only written stuff about it. Have you found these folks? https://www.curtislegacyfoundation.org/resources-guide. Their work may be useful to you.

There was also some analytical work done on Australian Orotones by the late Alan Elliott.

Tony Tidswell said:

I have been making Orotones (GoldTones, Curtones - whatever) for a couple of years and having fun printing from collodion negatives and calotypes by contact printing and using the carbon transfer process - this gives me an affordable way of making very large negatives up to 30 x 40cm and the ability to chose a pigment for the glop to suit the "gold" mixture for coating the emulsion.

It has been a long and steep learning curve, mostly to get the "gold" mixture right and authentic - but I am now just about happy with the results.

Curtis poured his gold coating I understand and I have read that he tried different varnishes to protect the coating, but the only contemporaneous comments I can find are that his workshop smelled of bananas (so does mine).

It is a couple of months since the last comment to this thread - does anyone have any new links or contacts please?

[Alan Hodgson]

Hi Tony. Give me your email address and I will send you some of Alan E's work on this

Tony Tidswell said:

Hello Alan - many thanks for you response - I have studied information from the "Curtis Legacy Foundation" - I am grateful for the reference to Alan Elliot, I will save my pennies to subscribe to the RPS so I can search more (luckily I qualify for a discount).

Various spectral analysis exercises seem to confirm my notes about the composition of the "gold" coatings - I find that the only way to get the answers is to make many orotone plates myself with experimental permutations as the metal powders are all very different, more copper in the brass (or bronze), can cause problems later collodion was used to safeguard this I believe, I have used this but also have found some other techniques which seem to have potential.

Silver gelatin plates (Seed plates) seems to be the preferred way that Curtis worked, but I am using carbon transfer with natural pigments to create the image and then flowing the "gold" over this, so I hope to circumvent some problems - I understand Curtis gold toned his work (or other toning techniques) to replace the silver.

Is there any way I can access some of the RPS files?

Thank you

Tony

Alan Hodgson said:

Hi Tony. I have not worked on this for an age. Only written stuff about it. Have you found these folks? https://www.curtislegacyfoundation.org/resources-guide. Their work may be useful to you.

There was also some analytical work done on Australian Orotones by the late Alan Elliott.

Tony Tidswell said:

I have been making Orotones (GoldTones, Curtones - whatever) for a couple of years and having fun printing from collodion negatives and calotypes by contact printing and using the carbon transfer process - this gives me an affordable way of making very large negatives up to 30 x 40cm and the ability to chose a pigment for the glop to suit the "gold" mixture for coating the emulsion.

It has been a long and steep learning curve, mostly to get the "gold" mixture right and authentic - but I am now just about happy with the results.

Curtis poured his gold coating I understand and I have read that he tried different varnishes to protect the coating, but the only contemporaneous comments I can find are that his workshop smelled of bananas (so does mine).

It is a couple of months since the last comment to this thread - does anyone have any new links or contacts please?

[Tony Tidswell]

Hello Alan - I have sent a message to you - my email is    [e-mail]