AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF FIXING PHOTOGRAPHIC PICTURES OR REPRESENTATIONS UPON EARTHENWARE, PORCELAIN, GLASS AND THE LIKE
Year: 1882

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by Henry Harris Lake at the Office of
the Commissioners of Patents on the 26th June 1882. A communication to
him from abroad by Emile Joseph Irlande of Paris, France, Merchant
HENRY HARRIS LAKE, of the firm of Haseltine, Lake, & Co, Patent Agents,
Southampton Buildings, London. "AN IMPROVED PROCESS OF FIXING PHOTOGRAPHIC
PICTURES OR REPRESENTATIONS UPON EARTHENWARE, PORCELAIN, GLASS
AND THE LIKE." [Communicated to him from abroad by Emile Joseph Irlande
of Paris, France, Merchant.]
WARE
It has heretofore been proposed to produce upon earthenware, china-ware or
porcelain, glass-ware, and the like, photographic pictures or representations; for
this purpose the carbon processes of photography have specially been employed.
It has not however been heretofore practicable to render such pictures or
representations unchangeable or permanent; they disappear when washed or
subjected to friction.
The object of this invention is to provide a process of fixing which prevents
such change or alteration of the photographic pictures or representations.
In carrying the said invention into practice I apply, in the ordinary manner, to
the earthenware, porcelain or china-ware, opal-glass, glass-ware, plate or other
glass or the like, the photographic pictures or representations in carbon by the
ordinary well known means, by employing paper prepared with colored carbon,
that is to say, after having obtained from the negative an impression upon this
paper I apply it in the dark to the earthenware porcelain or china, glass or other
material which has been previously gelatinized in a cold bath of 2 or 3 degrees.
The paper, after having had the impression produced on it, and been applied to
the glass or other surface, is developed in the dark by treating it with hot water
which dissolves the parts not affected by the actinic action of the light, and the
parts whereon the impression is produced remain adherent to the glass; porcelain
or other material. The representations applied may be drawings, images, portraits,
landscapes, letters, scenery, symbols, figures or the like. The photographic image
in carbon is enclosed in a thin coating of sensitized gelatine. By washing with
water or by friction this gelatine may be dissolved or detached. I fix it by a kind
of enamelling by operating in the following manner that is to say. I spread with

page_text: a brush a layer of boiled oil or oil-varnish or alcohol, with or without the addition
of a small quantity of spirits of turpentine. I carry to an oven or kiln the objects
thus decorated and varnished; the heat spreads and renders regular the coating of
varnish, obliterates all traces of the strokes of the brush and hardens the varnish
which then forms a resisting glaze which protects the photographic image in
carbon.
The pieces taken from the oven or furnace are treated with pumice by the
ordinary means; the photographs thus obtained are absolutely transparent and
very clear.
Prior to the application of the varnish for fixing the subject or picture upon the
glass, porcelain, or other material, the photographs may be colored in order to give
to the subject a natural colour.