A palette of colors on a silver plate: That is what
the world’s first color photograph looks like. It was taken by
French physicist Edmond Becquerel in 1848. His process was
empirical, never explained, and quickly abandoned. Now, a team at
the Centre de recherche sur la conservation (CNRS/Muséum National
d’Histoire Naturelle/Ministère de la Culture), in collaboration
with the SOLEIL synchrotron and the Laboratoire de Physique des
Solides (CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay), reports that the colors
obtained by Edmond Becquerel were due to the presence of metallic
silver nanoparticles. Their study was published on 30 March 2020 in
Angewandte Chemie International Edition.
