A three-stepped wooden box sitting on a somewhat broader rectangular wooden base.
The two top ‘steps’ of the box are relatively large, and the first one is relatively small, only a few centimeters high. The tops of the highest two ‘steps’ are glass, with the top step originally being red glass, and the middle step being dark blue glass; both of these are fixed in place by metal frames. A third piece of green glass is affixed as the riser to the second step, perpendicular to the blue glass.
Accession Number: 2009.ph.22
Alternative Name: Kromskop Viewer
Primary Materials: Metal, Wood, Glass
Markings:
Height = 18.2, Width = 16.2, Length = 22.2
The Kromskop (pron. “chrome-scope”) is a optical device designed to recombine specially captured monochrome photographs in order to view a photographic image in colour. It was designed by Philadelphian Frederic Eugene Ives, who described his invention like this:
“The Kromskop is an optical instrument which accomplishes for light and color what the Phonograph accomplishes for sound and the Kinetoscope for motion … The Kromskop photograph is … although not a color photograph, a color record, just as the cylinder of the phonograph, although not a cylinder of sound, contains a record of sounds, and the kinetoscope ribbon, although not an animated photograph, contains a record of motion. The phonograph cylinder must be placed in the phonograph before it can be made to reproduce the sounds recorded; the kinetoscope ribbon must pass through the kinetoscope in order to visually reproduce the moving scene; and the Kromogram must be placed in the Kromskop in order to visually reproduce the object photographed.” – Frederic Ives, Kromskop Color Photography (1898)
Very good. The wood of the object is in good condition. The topmost glass lid of the box is damaged or corroded on the surface; its red colouring is only visible around the very rim where the glass is affixed to the wood, and the surface exhibits a lacy pattern. The hood covering the eyeholes shown in the catalogue is not present.
Associated Instruments:
Manufacturer: The Scientific Shop?
Date of Manufacture: c. 1900
Department of Physics, University of Toronto
A catalogue from The Scientific Shop for the “Kromskop” designed by F.E. Ives can be found at the Smithsonian Institute Libraries collection of scientific catalogues.
A description of the Kromskop and its function can be found at thebioscope.net.
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