The Tartan Ribbon or Further Experiments of Maxwell’s Disappointment/Sutton’s Accident

Abstract

On 17 May 1861, James Clerk Maxwell delivered a lecture at the Royal Society where he demonstrated, using a lantern slide projection, his theory for colour perception in the human eye via the additive colour process known today as RGB. Three images from three separate lantern slide projectors were projected onto a surface. The same colour filters with which the object had been photographed where then placed in front of each projection lens, carefully realigned, and what has been called “the first colour photograph” was supposed to have been created. It was a series of happy accidents, during capture and exposure, and a misinterpretation of the results—mostly long after the event itself—that has invented this commonly referred to fictional “First Ever” title. In the following retelling of the historical details in their chronological order and through a series of experiments with historically correct emulsions, we will clearly outline the errors and where they occurred.