Graphoscope-Stereoscope

Bill Douglas Cinema Museum^[1] #EXBD-69117

English c.1860s

Dimensions: H= cm, W= cm, D= cm

Graphoscope Lens: ⌀=9.8 cm, ƒ=20 cm

 

Figure 69117.1 –Graphoscope-Stereoscope
Shown with the graphoscope lens in place. Photo © Rod Bantjes.

Figure 69117.2 –Stereoscope Element
The graphoscope lens is folded down and the stereoscope lenses folded up in its place. Photo © Rod Bantjes.

This device combines an 18^th-century 3D technology – the large biconvex lens – with a 19^th-century one – the stereoscope. It is an example of an "optical machine" and is included in the Optical Machine Taxonomy.

 

The graphoscope has a single biconvex lens through which one looks with both eyes at a single image. It works on the same principle as the peepshows and zograscopes of the 18^th century, except that instead of a large copper-plate engraving or vue d’optique, one looks at a smaller image, typically a photograph or carte de visite.

 

The graphoscope lens folds down so that a pair of stereoscope lenses can be erected in its place (Figure 69117.2). These lenses direct each eye to one of two slightly different images taken at slightly different angles – one from the left (for the left eye) and one from the right (for the right eye).

 

Charles John Rowsell received a provisional patent for the device in 1864. However he failed to extend patent protection, and his complaint in 1870 that other manufacturers were copying his design tells us perhaps about his regret, but also that his device had become popular in England at that time.^[3] This example is made of hardwood (probably mahogany) with sturdy brass fittings and good-quality craftsmanship. Higher-quality examples can be found with carved elements and ivory accents. These were clearly intended for a well-to-do bourgeois market.

 

In the 1890s the French produced simpler, cheaper 'souvenier' models out of lighter woods, covered in papier maché and lacquer, with lighter hardware.

 

The graphoscope was one of a cluster of devices, including Carlo Ponti's Alethoscope and Megalethoscope, and Francis Frith's Cosmoscope, designed in the 1860s for the 3D viewing of photographs. The unprecedented fine detail of photographic images allowed makers to use lenses with short focal lengths which magnified the image surface and would have exposed the imperfections of the engravings that had formerly been used in such devices. Shorter focal lengths meant a shorter distance between lens and image and smaller devices than the 18^th-century predecessors.^[4] Rowsell, Ponti and Frith returned to large lenses typical of 18^th-century optical boxes that allowed viewing with both eyes and a much more powerful 3D effect.^[5]

 

In the first half of the 19^th century, just prior to the introduction of these devices, most private-use optical machines had been made as children's toys using cheap materials and monocular lenses (see for example the popular Polyorama Panoptique ). The quality of cabinetry of many graphoscopes marks these as more 'serious' devices serving the universal craze for photographic images. Like the stereoscope, these were probably intended for use by all family members, and visitors, within bourgeois households.

Intermedia Hybrids

Figure 69117.3 –Ebony Graphoscope
Mashup of the graphoscope and Holmes stereoscope Source: The American Stationer, July 13, 1882, p.85.

Figure 69117.4 –Lewis Graphoscope-Stereoscope
Patent application for a mashup design. Source:

Intermedia hybrids are "mashups" between optical machines and other devices like the magic lantern, the phonograph, animation devices and in this case the stereoscope. The hybrid often borrows signature features of the component devices. The wooden lens hoods of this device (Figure 69117.2) are typical of many Brewster stereoscopes.

 

The two devices depicted here borrow instead from the Holmes stereoscope. Not only is the lens hood similar, but in the Lewis device (Figure 69117.4) the handle and the oddly-shaped connector that is enlarged in the diagram are identical to ones on Holmes devices.

 

The 3D effect of the stereoscope is far superior to that of the graphoscope in my view. Others, closer to the period, agreed. Arthur Judge observes in 1926 that ‘Those who have viewed single prints with any of the devices mentioned [single-lens devices including the graphoscope], and have also observed stereoscopic pairs in the stereoscope will agree that there is no comparison between the results, the latter being infinitely better in relief, solidity and perspective.’^[2]

 

However the popularity of the graphoscope, and the fact that so many designers insisted that it should not be "left behind" and must have a equal place with the stereoscope, suggests that others valued its capabilities more highly than Judge and I do.

 

Endnotes