First Color Photographs of China

Outside of the clothing, this picture looks as if it could have been taken yesterday, yet it is over 100 years old. The archives of Albert Kahn contain hundreds of thousands of photographs, 72,000 of them in color. Kahn used the pioneering Autochrome method of color. In 1912, he took pictures in China, which became the first photographic record of the country in color. See a half-dozen of the China pictures at Creative Roots and and some of Kahn’s photographs of Mongolia as well.