La Gare, the Royal Hotel and two other views of Deauville, France as Stanhope microphotographs.
Category
Photographs
Date
1860 - 1900
Materials
Bone, Metal
Measurements
196 x 16 x 9 mm
Order this imageCollection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1521193
Summary
A carved bone penholder and letter opener Stanhope, with microphotographic wet plate collodion images on glass, mounted behind a magnifying lens. There are 4 images of Deauville, France, depicting La Gare, the Royal Hotel and two other views.The images are contained in the bone holder, half way up between the metal nibholder (and nib) and the bone letter opener. It has a plain design, that has been turned, before flattening out to the letter opener. It has "Deauville" printed on black script on the letter opener. A Stanhope is an optical device that enables the viewing of microphotographs without using a microscope. Invented by René Dagron in 1857, Stanhopes bypassed the need for an expensive microscope to view the microscopic photographs by attaching the microphotograph at the end of a modified Stanhope lens (Charles Stanhope was the originator of the lens).
Provenance
Part of the Fenton Collection. A gift from British Film Institute in 2017. From 1986-1999, part of BFI collection for the Museum of the Moving Image. BFI purchased collection in 1986 from James Fenton's Museum of Photography, Port Erin, Isle of Man 1976-1986