Delight.

These hauntingly beautiful early colour photographs record the human geography' and monuments of Thessalonika between 1913 and 1918.

Soon after Greece had regained Salonika from Turley in 1912, the Archives de Ia Planete decided a photographic survey should be made, to record aspects, practices and modes of human activity the inevitable disappearance of which is only a matter of time'. Begun by Auguste Leon in May 1913 (between two Balkan wars) and continued by Stephane Passet in September that year (just after the second Balkan war had ended), the survey was completed by Leon Busy in 1918, when First World War Allied troops were still based in Salonika. By then, a large part of the city had been either damaged or destroyed by a major fire in 1917.

The technical and aesthetic quality of the images is astonishing. Made using the potato-based autochrome photographic process invented by the Lumiere brothers in 1903, they combine the calm stillness characteristic of long, slow exposure with colours of pointillist subtlety.

Some show monuments -- the grassy silhouette of a bronze-age fort, the mighty city wall begun circa 315 BC, a large Jewish cemetery established from the fifteenth century, and several churches long used as mosques which had been reappropriated for their original purpose in 1912. Less imposing structures are also featured -- small houses with timber-frame jettied upper storeys overhanging narrow streets, shops, ships in the harbour, improvised shelters and refugee encampments -- as are people going about their daily chores or posing for the camera. Founded on the initiative of the Paris-based banker Albert Kahn (1860-1940) in the belief increased knowledge of different cultures would foster international understanding and peace between nations, the Archives de Ia Planete was active in some 50 countries in 1909-1931.

After Kahn was bankrupted by the Wall Street Crash, the Archives and his extraordinary 4 hectare garden were taken into public ownership. Both now form part of the Musee Albert Kahn, where 72 000 autochromes and 183 000m of film can be accessed by the public on video.