116 Of The Oldest Color Photos Showing What The World Looked Like 100 Years Ago
When you think of old photos or historical pictures, you naturally think in terms of black and white, but as you can see from these stunning vintage photos from the turn of the 20th century, color pictures have been around for a lot longer than you think.
Before 1907, if you wanted a color photograph, you (well, a professional colorist) basically had to color it using different dyes and pigments. Still, two French brothers called Auguste and Louis Lumière revolutionized all that with a game-changing process that they called the Autochrome Lumière. Using dyed grains of potato starch and light-sensitive emulsion, they could produce color in vintage photography without the need for additional colorization. Despite being difficult to manufacture and somewhat expensive, the process was very popular among amateur photographers. As a result, one of the world's first books of color photography was published using the Autochrome Lumière technique.
The brothers revolutionized the world of color photography until Kodak took things to a whole new level with the invention of Kodachrome film in 1935, a lighter and more convenient alternative that quickly made the Autochrome Lumière obsolete (although its popularity continued in France up until the 1950s). Kodachrome was also eventually overtaken by the rise of digital photography (Kodak stopped manufacturing Kodachrome in 2009), which is now by far the world's most popular way to take pictures. Still, modern advances in photographic technology wouldn't have been possible without the hard work of early pioneers like Auguste and Louis Lumière. Scroll down for a collection of stunning historical photos in color using their groundbreaking technique.
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Christina In Red, 1913
I know she is wearing a bathing suit . What a difference in mores' today !
Morality is in the mind of the viewer not the responsibility of the viewed
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It looks like it could have been taken now rather than 1913. Old is like new
I love that she she has skinned knees and...an ankle bracelet?
The first one "Christina In Red, 1913" was taken at Durdle Door in Dorset, England, and has been flipped left to right. first-colo...537acd.jpg 
Slightly different angle, but still looks the same 105 years later.
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In my humble opinion... All these photos have a quality that today's equipment cannot measure up to. The lighting and colour are beautiful and oh so natural!
You are right . As a musician we are sticklers about using vintage as opposed to modern. And I have seen more and more photographers embracing these values my question is why did the equipment makers ever try to change things in the first place ?
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This picture has been reversed. That is the famous Durdle Door in Dorset behind her, but it is the wrong way round.
It's called compositional technique. Our eyes scan naturally from left to right, so turning the picture around makes it more comfortable to "read." If it were purely a record shot, your complaint would be valid.
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Two years ago when these photos first became popular I tried to find info on Christina. Mervyn O'Gorman who made these photos,(and there are better one's than this BTW) was Christina's uncle, not father. Christina was a visiting Irish cousin. I gather Christina was a lonely girl, and was flattered her uncle thought her pretty enough for photos. And yes, this is a swimsuit. Oh, and Christina was twelve. O'Gorman himself was an important guy, and famous during his lifetime. He was an engineer and involved in both auto-racing and aviation. However, I had a hard time finding any info on her after the first World War. It's possible she died young. Many did during those years. I'd love to hear that I'm wrong if anyone out there knows what became of her?
Mervyn O'Gorman wasn't Christina's uncle,Warren. She was the daughter of his neighbours, Edwyn & Mary Bevan. Christina never married. She was born in 1897 and died in 1981 at Stoke Hammond near Milton Keynes.
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wauw, beautiful picture. It also slipped my mind that back then there were no plastics!! Oh clean oceans and clean shores...
Not necessarily Miss Helga. It may look clear, but they were poring everything from mercury, to caustic chemicals to raw sewage into both the rivers and the ocean itself.
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Love it!! Loe the boat, it looks like made by humans no machine, Love the hair.. so gorgeous cause naturally long and messy.. Love the attitude, ... no attitudes <3
Old, but not nearly ‘oldest’. I have tricolor carbon transfer prints from forty years before this photo. The quality was much better as well in the carbon prints, but they were too difficult and time consuming to make so the more industrial Autochromes won out.
Before I read the description on this link, my first thought was "Is that Taylor Swift?"
She was actually no relation to the photographer other than family friends. https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/about-us/press-office/christina-mystery-beautiful-102-year-old-colour-portraits-solved
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Looks like the pic is reversed. Isn't that Durdle Door back to front behind the girl?
It looks like it could've been taken in 2017 rather than1913. Even though it's old, it's new.
My grandmother in law caused a scandal at the beach because she took of her nylons and went swimming bare legged.
Fun fact: the girl is wearing red because the photo would develop better that way.
Her name was Christina Bevan and she lived until 1981. https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/about-us/press-office/christina-mystery-beautiful-102-year-old-colour-portraits-solved
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Lovely. It almost looks like a modern photo of someone in vintage attire.
I can hardly believe this is 100 years old! It's a picture I see myself shoot with the girl in more or less the same style. Gorgeous!
Great photo, i think it’s taken at Durdle Door if it is then the photo needs to be reversed as the Door should be on the left
Not Cristina from the Wyeth paintings. She was dark haired in her 50s
Lovely composition and the splash of color against the gray is stunning
Something about this photo! Girl in a bathing costume... contemplative...
The photo was taken at Lulworth Cove in Dorset County England in 1913. It is of Christina O'Gorman, the photographers daughter. The photographer is Mervyn O'Gorman. This is a fairly famous photo.
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Flower Street Vendor, Paris, 1914
Heinz And Eva On The Hillside, 1925
Sisters Sitting In A Garden Tying Roses Together, 1911
Moulin Rouge, Paris, 1914
Daydreams, 1909
Musing (Mrs. A. Van Besten), C. 1910
The Eiffel Tower, Paris, 1914
Wow! This photo is most remarkable for the shot of the old Trocadero palace, seen through the tower's arch! It hasn't been there for 80 years.
A Girl Holds A Doll Next To Soldiers' Equipment In Reims, France, 1917
The Grenata Street Army, 1915
Among The First Coloured Pictures Ever Taken By Louis Lumière, 1907
Two Girls On A Balcony, 1908
Young Girl Amidst Marguerites, C. 1912
Air Balloons, Paris, 1914
Charlie Chaplin, 1918
Autochrome Of Mark Twain, 1908
Christina In Red, 1913
Outdoor Market, Paris, 1914
There are still street markets like this in Paris if you know where to look. They aren't all that hard to find, either. If you see vans parked on the street that have spectacular graffiti all over them, there's a market nearby. The graffiti on the vans gets competitive and some of it is spectacular.
Woman Smoking Opium, 1915
Two Girls In Oriental Costume, 1908
Can people really stop with the appropriation, it's clothing !!! Should we stop eating food from different cultures or watch different
Van Besten Painting In His Garden, 1912
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mostar, 1913
Eva And Heinz On The Shore Of Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, C. 1927
Girl In A Garden With Hollyhocks, 1908
Sweden, Near Gagnef (Mother And Daughter In Traditional Clothes), 1910
Else Reading By The Nile, 1920
Woman And Girl By A Brook, 1910
Family Portrait At Roannay, Belgium, 1913
The Neptune Fountain, Cheltenham, 1910
An Autochrome Of Two Sisters, 1908
Apan (Young Samurai), 1912
Oh the changes he would have seen...to go from a society like the outfit he has on represents, to WW2 where he might have been an officer in his 40s, to the resurgence of Japan in the 70s (if he lived).
Autochrome Of Else Paneth On A Camel, 1913
Japan, Kyoto, 1912
The girl in the middle... for a split second I thought her obi belt was see through
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sarajevo, 1912
Mother Of Seven Making Fringes For Knitted Shawls, Galway, Ireland, 29 May 1913
Louis Lumière's Daughter And Her Dolls, 1913
Lanchester 38hp Tourer, 1913
Porte Saint Denis, Paris, 1914
If you go to Google Maps and find the site, most if not all of the buildings are the same even the older looking house through the arch.
Joan In Red Riding Hood Cape With Basket, 1907
Autochrome Of A Young Girl, 1910
Girl With A Parasol Sitting On A Bench, 1908
Giant Oranges,paris, 1914
Very interesting. I thought they only did weird inflatable stuff recently!
Egypt, Giza, 1913
They were right : the old egyptians did remodel the head to a pharaoh's head and it was probably a lions head first. Compare the erosion of the body with that of the head.
Galway, Ireland 1 May 1913
An Autochrome Of Etheldreda Janet Laing Daughter In A Garden, Holding A Brightly Coloured Bunch Of Pink Flowers, 1908
Mongolia, Near Ulaanbaatar (Buddhist Lama), 1913
Traditional Irish Knitwear, An Spidéal, Galway, Ireland 1 May 1913 (Left), 14 Year Old Girl From The Claddagh Wearing Traditional Claddagh Dress. Galway, Ireland, 26th May 1913 (Right)
Lunch Of A French Soldier In Front Of A Damaged Library, 1st April 1917
Metro, Paris, 1914
Seems like maybe this photo might be later than 1914. My understanding is that the Adrian helmet was not introduced until 1915 (at least two of the soldiers in this photo seem to be wearing the helmets) and the all horizon blue colour seen here was not introduced until late 1914 (at the outbreak of the war French poilus were wearing red trousers, naturally this made them far too easy to see and contributed to heavier casualties)
Margate Beach, Blue Girl , 1915
The Family At The Lake, 1925
Hey, isn't this again our Eva and Heinz on vocation in the Alps? Not just some nameless "a family" ))
Palace Of Horticulture, Pan American Exposition, 1915
Highland Castle, Scotland, 1920
Mrs. Warburg, 1915
St. Mark's Cathedral, Venice, 1925
Market Stalls Outside An Egyptian Ruin, 1913
Children By The Breakwater, 1908
Galway, Ireland, 1913
India, Bombay (Sadus), 1913
Autochrome Of A Young Girl, 1910
Moulin Rouge, Paris, 1914
strange how this one is totally different from the other one from the Moulin Rouge from 1914... Look at the building left 19141578_1...8b9208.jpg 
Flower Street Vendor, Paris, 1914
Peggy In The Garden, 1909
So beautiful. This reminds me of that beautiful Swedish painting of children with lanterns--the name of which escapes me (help anyone?)
The Younger Girl Stands Beside Her Sister Holding A Pink Parasol. The Older Girl Rests Her Bonnet On Her Lap, 1908
Stagecoaches At Ghent, 1912
Staithes Harbor, 1915
Two Fishermen And A Boy, An Spidéal, Galway, Ireland, 31 May 1913
My money is on this being a family portrait of three generations.
At The Entrance To The Pyramid Of Menkare, 1913
It looks like it could be a scene from an Agatha Christie mystery in the middle east.
A Rusty Buoy, 1908
Sphinx And Camel, 1913
One Legged Man, Paris, 1914
Lumiere Brothers. The Game Of Billiards, 1907
This one is framed very well. The most 'like a painting' one yet!
Galway, Ireland, 1913
Shepherd’s Boy, C. 1913
The Kiosk Of Philae, 1913
Oranges In Uhlený Trh (“coal Market Square”), Prague, 1910
Eva Poses After A Successful Hunt In Scotland, C. 1920
Senegalese Soldiers Serving In The French Army As Infantrymen Are Resting In A Room With Guns And Equipment Next To Them, 16th June 1917
Man With Book Sitting In Chair, 1915
"I am holding this book so that everyone will think I know exactly what I am talking about. I am really just sort of nervous while I wait for this wedding, funeral, or other boutonniere-requiring occasion to begin."
Horse, Paris, 1914
Eiffel Tower River View, Paris, 1914
Two Girls At The Gate, 1915
Cafe La Tasse, Paris, 1914
Autochrome Of A French Military Cemetery, 1916
Woman In Floral Silk Robe, 1915
The Temple Of Dor El-Medine, 1913
Italian Riviera, 1910
Drunk Man Sleeping On City Street, Paris, 1914
Woman Sitting In Library, 1915
Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar (Prisoner), 1913
Peggy Reading, 1909
Omg I have that book at home! It's a Mother Goose fairy tale book!! ❤❤❤
Girl With A Bucket, 1915
A Small Customer, 1915
Lady And Fruit Dish, 1920
She's probably sitting there wondering why in the world the photographer insisted on posing her with all this fruit in the backyard.
Autochrome Photo By Cdt Tournassoud, 1910
Austrian Jaegers! Makes my heart swell to recall that my great-grandfather left for America to dodge the imperial draft!
Washing And Bleaching, 1912
Autochrome Of French Soldiers Operating Machine Guns During The Second Battle Of The Aisne, 1917
The Last Digger, 1910
Warburg took a lot of shots on this particular beach. Note the cart-tracks. Got me wondering.
The Butcher's Shop, 1915
presently I am traveling in south asia, this 1915 meat shop is cleaner by far than any I see on the street here. looks like cow?
On The Sands, 1910
Again this is a mid twenties beach scene. The clothes and hats and hemlines are all wrong for 1915
Morocco, Benguerir, 1912
Civic And Military Garb, C. 1911
Three Men Playing Cards, 1915
Autochome Of A Street In Jerusalem By An Unknown Artist During The Early 20th Century
Karnak, Egypt, 1913
It just looked like some ramshackle doorway until I noticed the size of the person standing under it.
Newsvendor In Reims Streets, 1917
Autochrome Of A French Military Observation Post, 1917
Anything Freddie?... Nup. Pierre?...Nah...Pub for a quick wine a cheese platter? OUI!!!
A Woman With A Cart Filled With Milk Cans In Rue De Vesle And A Man With Another Cart In Rue De Talleyrand Behind Her. 3rd March 1917
Krusevac, Serbia (Market Scene), 1913
Two Nurses And Child Dressed As "Uncle Sam" In Wwi Support Parade, Pasadena California, 1917
The Orange Stall, 1908
A French Soldier Stands Next To A Table With German Shells And An Aircraft Propeller, Along The Western Front In Reims, 1917
Autochrome By An Unknown Artist Of The Italian Battleship Caio Duilio During The Early 20th Century
Two French Soldiers Assigned To A Telephone Station Are Washing Their Laundry In A Trough Of A Fountain, While Three Others Are Watching, 18th June 1917
Wait–if two guys are washing, where's the third watcher? I see the guy in the cave and the Sgt Shultz type guy...
French Soldiers Dig Through The Rubble Of A Destroyed Building In Reims, France, 1917
I remember being a kid and thinking that because all old photographs were black and white, the whole world looked that way. This helps put a much more realistic perspective on things way back when.
Yeah it's funny that the older you get you realize that actually since the beginning of time the way we all see now has always been the same.
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As a serious amateur photographer, I am enjoying this post more than any I have seen here for some time. We need more of these priceless pictures. :D
Google "Daguerrotype" and you'll find stuff from 1840-1860's
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Some of these I want to hang on my wall, others I want to paint, all beautiful!
Some of them might jave been coloured afterwords, but still they are very impressive and make the ancient times crazy well imaginable. Love it!
The early gardfen and countryside portaits of young women have the artistry of a Renoir or a Monet at times. They took great pains with slow equipment - quite delightful portraits of those times. Very skilfull early day photographers. Thank you
These are great photos....some look "historical" while others look like they could have been taken yesterday!
I absolutely love this. Fantastic job! In color there is so much to take in.
These images are quite beautiful, and remind one of the Impressionist movement in art. The impressionistic energy, or way of look8ng at life around them definitely was in the air. Thank you so much for sharing them.
There is a great book of Autochromes from WWI. 'The First World War in Colour' by Peter Walter, published by Taschen in 2014. ISBN 978-3-8365-5418-3. Well worth a look, if you can find it
I love the concept that each photo is a moment recorded in time. Never to be repeated. The colours were fantastic. Bright purple agapanthus, true to colour. My grandmother and her two sisters were employed in Adelaide, South Australia, as colourists in the very early 1900s.
Saw the Eiffel Tower in '73 while stationed in Germany and it is really big. Pictures don't do it justice.
My gradnfather was in France during WW I and would have seen much of Paris.
Taking these photographs required great artistry to counter the slow equipment of those days. The garden type portrits of young women in particular remind me of the artistry of Renoir and similar Impressionists. Quite delightful.
These photos make the era come alive. I can just imagine the conversations and the daily life of the people in these photos.
How lovely the world and our cities looked before we clogged everything with giant cars.
Interesting to see photographs (in color) that seem to copy art (oil paintings - Van Gogh Night Cafe pool table and Cezanne Card Players) that copied--or at least used--photos (monotone presumably) when they were done 10-15 years earlier!
For the record, the photo "Christina in Red" is incorrect in one notable way: It is a mirror-image of the original. (Find images of "Durdle Door, Dorset" and note that the beach is only on one side of the distinctive landmark. Thus you can deduce where the photo MUST have been taken. The ocean would be on the right, not the left.) I have notified the owners of the original. They have agreed with my discovery.
It's amazing how much more modern people look when you can see them in color.
Seeing these makes me think how easy we have it these days with digital cameras. A hundred years ago taking and producing colour pictures was such a difficult and expensive process. Even when I started working with colour printing in the darkroom, getting one good picture processed in a session was an achievement. Lucky these old pictures survive.
Thank you so much for not putting these in a detestable slide show! I love that they were all on one page.
I think the color process here is superior. The color seems totally satuated and emitting a softness remiscent of a fine oil painting.
Saw the Eiffel Tower in '73 while stationed in Germany and was amazed at how big it really is.
Beautiful, subtle and poetic. Worlds away from the din of modern day.
Although it's good to be able to look at a grainy old b&w photo and yet grasp the reality of its subject, I'll bet some really good things are to come with computer enhancement. I like explaining to younger people how we came from a world where everyone knew how to kill a chicken, pluck it and throw it in an oven and you had to eat vegetables because there were no antibiotics. People kept tabletops really tidy so they wouldn't knock over candles and oil lamps, etc.
Interesting that there are no images of adult men! Guess they were too busy working...
Eva in #23 and Family at the lake #49 appear to have been taken either the same day or around the same period but they are posted as being two years apart (1927 and 1925 respectively). Eva is wearing the same bathing suit and she and the boy look to be about the same age in both pictures. I wonder which year is correct.
OH! The Moulin Rouge was red. I ... that never occurred to me before. "Moulin Rouge" means "Red Mill".
É vergonhoso saber do nosso atraso tecnológico, na década de 60 ainda era de ddifícil acesso a esta tecnologia no Brasil
I remember being a kid and thinking that because all old photographs were black and white, the whole world looked that way. This helps put a much more realistic perspective on things way back when.
Yeah it's funny that the older you get you realize that actually since the beginning of time the way we all see now has always been the same.
Load More Replies... As a serious amateur photographer, I am enjoying this post more than any I have seen here for some time. We need more of these priceless pictures. :D
Google "Daguerrotype" and you'll find stuff from 1840-1860's
Load More Replies... Some of these I want to hang on my wall, others I want to paint, all beautiful!
Some of them might jave been coloured afterwords, but still they are very impressive and make the ancient times crazy well imaginable. Love it!
The early gardfen and countryside portaits of young women have the artistry of a Renoir or a Monet at times. They took great pains with slow equipment - quite delightful portraits of those times. Very skilfull early day photographers. Thank you
These are great photos....some look "historical" while others look like they could have been taken yesterday!
I absolutely love this. Fantastic job! In color there is so much to take in.
These images are quite beautiful, and remind one of the Impressionist movement in art. The impressionistic energy, or way of look8ng at life around them definitely was in the air. Thank you so much for sharing them.
There is a great book of Autochromes from WWI. 'The First World War in Colour' by Peter Walter, published by Taschen in 2014. ISBN 978-3-8365-5418-3. Well worth a look, if you can find it
I love the concept that each photo is a moment recorded in time. Never to be repeated. The colours were fantastic. Bright purple agapanthus, true to colour. My grandmother and her two sisters were employed in Adelaide, South Australia, as colourists in the very early 1900s.
Saw the Eiffel Tower in '73 while stationed in Germany and it is really big. Pictures don't do it justice.
My gradnfather was in France during WW I and would have seen much of Paris.
Taking these photographs required great artistry to counter the slow equipment of those days. The garden type portrits of young women in particular remind me of the artistry of Renoir and similar Impressionists. Quite delightful.
These photos make the era come alive. I can just imagine the conversations and the daily life of the people in these photos.
How lovely the world and our cities looked before we clogged everything with giant cars.
Interesting to see photographs (in color) that seem to copy art (oil paintings - Van Gogh Night Cafe pool table and Cezanne Card Players) that copied--or at least used--photos (monotone presumably) when they were done 10-15 years earlier!
For the record, the photo "Christina in Red" is incorrect in one notable way: It is a mirror-image of the original. (Find images of "Durdle Door, Dorset" and note that the beach is only on one side of the distinctive landmark. Thus you can deduce where the photo MUST have been taken. The ocean would be on the right, not the left.) I have notified the owners of the original. They have agreed with my discovery.
It's amazing how much more modern people look when you can see them in color.
Seeing these makes me think how easy we have it these days with digital cameras. A hundred years ago taking and producing colour pictures was such a difficult and expensive process. Even when I started working with colour printing in the darkroom, getting one good picture processed in a session was an achievement. Lucky these old pictures survive.
Thank you so much for not putting these in a detestable slide show! I love that they were all on one page.
I think the color process here is superior. The color seems totally satuated and emitting a softness remiscent of a fine oil painting.
Saw the Eiffel Tower in '73 while stationed in Germany and was amazed at how big it really is.
Beautiful, subtle and poetic. Worlds away from the din of modern day.
Although it's good to be able to look at a grainy old b&w photo and yet grasp the reality of its subject, I'll bet some really good things are to come with computer enhancement. I like explaining to younger people how we came from a world where everyone knew how to kill a chicken, pluck it and throw it in an oven and you had to eat vegetables because there were no antibiotics. People kept tabletops really tidy so they wouldn't knock over candles and oil lamps, etc.
Interesting that there are no images of adult men! Guess they were too busy working...
Eva in #23 and Family at the lake #49 appear to have been taken either the same day or around the same period but they are posted as being two years apart (1927 and 1925 respectively). Eva is wearing the same bathing suit and she and the boy look to be about the same age in both pictures. I wonder which year is correct.
OH! The Moulin Rouge was red. I ... that never occurred to me before. "Moulin Rouge" means "Red Mill".
É vergonhoso saber do nosso atraso tecnológico, na década de 60 ainda era de ddifícil acesso a esta tecnologia no Brasil
