The Eiffel Tower as a Stanhope microphotograph.
Category
Photographs
Date
1860 - 1900
Materials
Bone, Metal, Graphite
Measurements
147 x 12 x 12 mm
Order this imageCollection
Fox Talbot Museum, Wiltshire
NT 1521195
Summary
A carved bone pencil and pen holder Stanhope, with microphotographic wet plate collodion images on glass, mounted behind a magnifying lens. There is a central image of the Eiffel Tower, surrounded by 11 smaller images which is contained at the top of the detachable top of the bone holder, which unscrews. The holder unscrews again, half way down, to reveal the penholder. It is presently configured as a pencil, holding leads in a small visible chamber. It has ornate patterning and a cut design. Underneath the central image, there is printing in black. 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