Historic filter usage

[Marco B]

Hi,

Well, actually, this is not really a photographic question, but I stumbled upon this historic image and found it intriguing enough to share. I never new that this kind of usage of colour filters historically existed...

So what is it? It's an historic picture of a terrace at one the most beautiful viewpoints in the Netherlands, Westerbouwing. If you've ever visited the Netherlands, you probably think of the Netherlands as a completely flat, pancake country. Well, frankly, it isn't. Besides the most southern province Limburg extending into the sloping terrains also part of Belgium and Germany, there are two major hill structures covering large areas in the centre of the Netherlands, which are left-overs of the last ice age. Westerbouwing is part of the Veluwe massive, and the most southern end towers (well, in Dutch context ) about 50 - 70 meters above the surrounding Rhine river landscape, as you can see in this picture, giving some magnificent views of the Dutch landscape.

Now the thing I find fascinating is the object just left of the centre of the image. It's a kind of rotatable rig, similar to the ones used for telescopes at viewpoints. But this isn't. According to what I read on another webpage referring to this image, it's a set of coloured filters that can be used to view the landscape from a different perspective...

Anyone familiar with these kind of things and know more about the history of it?

Image is from the "Gelderland in beeld" website, cropped.

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[Bob F.]

A similar idea was the Claude Glass: http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/paintings/features/cheating/claude/index.html. Popular with Victorian tourists and amateur artists of the Picturesque movement.

Bob.

 

[Marco B]

Yes, I saw a reference to that too on the original webpage where I discovered this image. But it didn't explain what a Claude Glass was, like your reference does. Thanks, nice info.