Kromskop

Launched in 1895 the Kromskop enabled the viewer to see a full colour and stereoscopic image. For a few years it was very popular and was marketed as ‘invaluable for Evening Parties, At Homes … Garden Parties &c…’.

It was invented by the American Frederic Ives. He abandoned efforts to create a practical way of printing colour photographs on paper and turned his attention to the work of James Clerk Maxwell. He decided to create an additive colour viewing machine.

The Kromskop shows the viewer an image, through a viewfinder, that is created using three stereoscopic lantern slides. One is taken using a red filter, one blue and one green. Using a system of coloured filters and mirrors, the viewer saw ‘the three images … blended as to appear as one to the eye’.

Ives also invented the Lantern Kromskop. This when used with a magic lantern, enabled the colour images to be presented to a large audience.

The Kromskop was only available commercially for a short time. Yet the demonstration of colour images created using colour filters inspired the first moving image colour experiments.