Mono and stereo graphoscope made of Thuya burl

Large and beautiful mono and stereo graphoscope, brand Ancienne Maison Martinet, rue de Rivoli. Format 23x35 cm.

The first graphoscopes appeared in the mid-19th century. They were equipped with a large magnifying lens for viewing photographs on paper, and two smaller ones for stereoscopic views. These objects were made as much to see better as to be seen. Mahogany, ebony, rosewood, fine marquetry, scrollwork... nothing was too beautiful to give these objects the elegance and refinement befitting the bourgeois interiors of that era.

Stereoscopic photography is as old as "flat" photography (the kind of photography we know today). The invention of stereoscopic images even predates photography itself, since in 1838, Wheatstone, a member of the Royal Society of London, invented a mirror-based device that reproduced depth (as a reminder, the official date of the invention of photography is 1839). Furthermore, the principle of obtaining a stereoscopic image had already been established in antiquity by Euclid and further developed by Leonardo da Vinci in 1484.