The Crystal Palace as a Stanhope microphotograph.
Category
Photographs
Date
1860 - 1900
Materials
Bone, Metal
Measurements
221 x 16 x 13 mm
Order this imageCollection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1521194
Summary
A carved bone penholder and letter opener Stanhope, with microphotographic wet plate collodion images on glass, mounted behind a magnifying lens. There is a single image of the Crystal Palace which is contained at the top of the detachable top of the bone holder, which unscrews to reveal the metal nibholder (and nib). It has ornate patterning and a cut out barley sugar design, before flattening out to the plain letter opener. On the letter opener is a white paper sticker with the handwritten number in black "1682". Underneath the image, printed in black:"Manufactured in France". 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