The windmills, canals, and cities in the Netherlands are a sight to see. But looking through these postcards of Holland in the late 1890s sheds some light on what life was like back then. The postcards use the Photochrom process - a technique for applying lifelike color to black-and-white images.
The Photocrom was invented in the 1880s by Hans Jakob Schmid, an employee of a Swiss printing company. The process starts by applying a light-sensitive emulsion to a lithographic limestone tablet and expositing it to sunlight under a photo negative for several hours. A single Photochrom may require hours of labor to produce. In fact, the Photocrom process is a painstaking and time consuming one. Yet it was capable of creating remarkably precise color images at a time when true color photography was just starting to be developed.
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1. Girls on market island.
2. A typical windmill in Holland.
3. A canal in Amsterdam.
4. The great market, Nijmegen.
5. Children on market island.
6. Canal in the Hague.
7. Town Hall, Haarlem.
8. Amsterdam Gate, Haarlem.
9. Catherine bridge and the windmill, Haarlem.
10. The Town Hall and great market, Nijmegen.
11. Belvedere, Nijmegen.
12. Arcade, Rotterdam.
13. Two bridges on the Meuse, Rotterdam.
14. A canal in Rotterdam.
15. Coolvest, Rotterdam.
16. The road to the Scheveningen.
17. The beach at Scheveningen.
18. Beach chairs at Scheveningen.
19. Boats on the beach at Scheveningen.
20. Beachgoers and the Kursaal, Scheveningen.
21. Ouda Gracht: Bakkerbrug, Utrecht.
22. The Witte Huis, Rotterdam.
23. A park in Utrecht.
24. A pond in Arnhem.
25. Beekhuizen, Arnhem.
26. Janssingel, Arnhem.
27. Water tower, Delft.
28. The Knights' Hall in the Hague.
29. Cathedral Interior, Rotterdam.
30. Inside a home on Marken Island.
31. The Binnehof and Court Pond at The Hague.
32. Dam Square, Amsterdam.
33. A man on Marken Island.
