Record Details

Name/TitleStere­o­scope ‘Le Multiphote’

About this objectLe Mul­ti­phote is a man­u­al mul­ti-view stere­o­scope designed for 24 glass slides. Turn­ing the knobs on the sides moves the front pan­el out­ward, allow­ing a slide to drop into posi­tion before the lens­es. Fur­ther rota­tion trans­fers the viewed slide into a detach­able tray in the stor­age com­part­ment below, while the next slide moves into place. Once all slides have been viewed, the tray can be removed and placed on top of the device. Slid­ing out the bot­tom of the tray reloads the slides into their orig­i­nal posi­tion. This elim­i­nates the need to turn the device upside down like with the less advanced view­er ‘Le Min­imus’. Hav­ing mul­ti­ple stor­age mag­a­zines at hand allows for quick and effi­cient slide replacement.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on the com­pa­ny can be found on André Ruiter’s blog: Lucien Bize

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erBize, Lucien

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Made1908–1915

Series TitleMul­ti­phote

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens tubes

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionLucien Albert Bize was a pio­neer in com­pact stere­o­scope inno­va­tion in ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry France. Intro­duced in 1908 along­side ‘Le Min­imus’ and ‘Le Phénix’, it fea­tures an inge­nious sim­ple mech­a­nism. Bize’s stere­o­scopes were ini­tial­ly man­u­fac­tured by Mai­son Gus­tave Jacob in Paris until Jacob’s bank­rupt­cy in 1911. Pro­duc­tion con­tin­ued under Bize until he sold his com­pa­ny to Robert Pleyau in 1913. The man­u­fac­tur­ing of Bize’s stere­o­scopes like­ly ceased dur­ing World War I.

For­mat45x107mm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 374970 (L. Bize, S. Cla­parede, 1907)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsGlass Slides

Object num­berM‑ST016

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved