Episode 1 of 2

Maxwell's Royal Institution Lecture

When: 1861
Where: Royal Institution
Part of: Maxwell's three-color method and the first permanent color photograph

Maxwell demonstrated color photography at the Royal Institution in 1861, presenting the first durable color photograph using his three-color method.

During an 1861 lecture on color theory, Maxwell presented the world's first demonstration of color photography. The demonstration relied on the principle of three-color analysis and synthesis. Thomas Sutton took three monochrome color separations of a ribbon, which were then projected to show the color image.

Sources

James Clerk Maxwell Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-23
Color photography Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-14
Royal Institution Wikipedia, revision of 2026-06-29

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.