Some packs of very old ‘Gevaluxe’ photographic paper came our way a while back, and we are finally beginning to test it. To re-cap, Gevaluxe was a most unusual printing paper, being a bromide paper with a very warm base, but the remarkable feature was the surface, which resembled velvet, and worked in the same way as velvet when illuminated. The shadows absorb the majority of light falling on them, resulting in a matt paper with the high brightness ratio found in a gloss paper. The amazing depth of black and good shadow separation made it the ‘Stradivari’ of papers, at it’s best when used in low key portraits, where the slight loss of definition was usually an advantage.
Mentioning Gevaluxe previously in the magazine, it was stated that this paper was discontinued in the 1960’s - this was was well out of range, the paper commenced manufacture in the early 1930’s and was discontinued in the 1950’s, prior to the merger of Gevaert with Agfa. The packs we have here, then, are certainly at least 50 years old, and judging by the label design, and the fact that the labelling refers to 'Germany', rather than East and West Germany, appears likely to be be pre-war.

Opening the crypt
Opening the paper at last was approached with trepidation, could it be possible to get a print from a material as old as this? The packaging was certainly devised to protect a delicate material. Inside the outer light card envelope was black light-tight paper in several folds. This enclosed a red waxed paper inner barrier which in turn was folded around two pieced of card, and between these was the Gevaluxe paper, the emulsion of the top sheet being covered by a sheet of heavy barrier paper. A small black paper packet contained test strips, a thoughtful touch, as this was the most expensive photographic paper ever made, and there were only 5 sheets to a pack. The size of this particular packing was the continental size 18x24cm, slightly smaller than the UK & US 8x10” format.
The developer for the first test was the new Ilford Warmtone, at the recommended dilution of 1+9. Initially the test strips supplied were checked for fog level, which was unuseably high. A 2% solution of benzotriazole was made up to add into the developer as a restrainer, and more tests were made adding successive 20ml quantities of this solution into the developer, checking more test strips until the fogging abated somewhat. At which point the full size sheets were unwrapped. The classic mistake was now made of trying to print on the barrier paper, and having finally figured that one out a test was at last made on a cut piece from the full size sheets.
Astoundingly there was no problem with fog whatsoever, and the developer containing the benzotriazole was discarded and replaced with fresh unrestrained developer. It appears that the test strips had been contaminated by their envelope, while the full sheets with their excellent packing had survived half a century unscathed. The negative was low key and on 8x10” film, chosen on the basis that the paper was likely to have lost so much speed that plenty of light would be required. Once again a surprising find, the exposure was only six seconds when contacted on the enlarger baseboard, not far off the times used when contacting onto Multigrade.

...and for the next 50?
Finding it possible to print on this most ancient of printing papers has been a rewarding experience. Gevaluxe prints are astonishing, both in their tonal range and their unique tactile presence.
Is it possible, now that the photographic art market is so established, that there will again be a potential for this type of paper? At any rate the remaining packs we have of Gevaluxe are back in cold storage and some is reserved for Ilford’s tests, in the hope that there may one day be an ‘Ilfoluxe’!