Record Details

Name/TitleTray-Stere­o­scope ‘Le Tax­iphote mod­èle mécanique’ with Orig­i­nal Table and ‘Trousse de Tax­iphote’ lens set

About this objectA bake­lite tray con­tain­ing 25 glass slides can be insert­ed by flip­ping down the front of the view­er. Then, by turn­ing a crank on the right side of the hous­ing, one slide after anoth­er can be exam­ined. One turn to lift the slide and anoth­er turn to move it towards the ocu­lars. The mag­ni­fi­ca­tion qual­i­ty and hence the view­ing expe­ri­ence rep­re­sents the top of all Tax­iphote models.
On the left side of the view­er, there is a counter which indi­cates the num­ber of the slide and allows nav­i­ga­tion to a spe­cif­ic slide while the cen­tre knob is pressed. Pulling a met­al chain on the left brings a mir­ror into posi­tion allow­ing the slide title to be read through the right ocular.
The lit­tle leathered case labelled ‘Trousse de Tax­iphote’ has moulds for three pairs of exchange lens­es for dif­fer­ent view­ing pur­pos­es. Except the main short focus lens pair, there’s one long focus pair turn­ing back the ‘Mod­èle mécanique’ into an ordi­nary mod­el, and a prism lens pair turn­ing the image upside down. These ‘Redresseurs’ were intend­ed to view non trans­posed Autochrome colour slides and were patent­ed in 1911.
Hav­ing togeth­er the view­er, the lens sets in their case and the extra­or­di­nary table, this ensem­ble is very rare and in excel­lent condition.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on the Tax­iphote can be found here: Le Tax­iphote — the most famous French stereo viewer

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erRichard, Jules

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Madec. 1915

Series TitleTax­iphote

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, tray-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens tubes

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionShort­ly after the suc­cess of the ‘Véras­cope’ stereo­scop­ic cam­era, Jules Richard and his engi­neer Louis Colardeau patent­ed the first mod­el as ‘Stéréo-Classeur’ in 1899 and start­ed pro­duc­tion in the same year. It was renamed as ‘Le Tax­iphote’ in 1900 and remained in pro­duc­tion for around 40 years.
There were two attempts to enlarge the vision of the 45x107mm for­mat list­ed as ‘court foy­er’ (short focus). One was the ‘Mod­èle optique’ using addi­tion­al lens­es for mag­ni­fi­ca­tion. The oth­er was the ‘Mod­èle mécanique’ which was the only short focus mod­el in the lit­er­al sense, because it indeed moves the slide clos­er to the ocu­lars. It remains unclear which of the two was intro­duced in the 1906 cat­a­logue, because both mech­a­nisms were already patent­ed by that year. How­ev­er, in 1908, both mod­els appear in the cat­a­logue. The crank oper­a­tion sys­tem of the ‘Mod­èle sim­pli­fié’ was adopt­ed to the ‘Mod­èle mécanique’ short­ly after 1911. All mod­els were avail­able in two stan­dard ver­sions, one in waxed wal­nut and one in pol­ished mahogany. There were also deluxe ver­sions with chang­ing designs such as inlaid pat­terns of dif­fer­ent woods or addi­tion­al ornaments.
The view­er illus­trat­ed was most like­ly pro­duced around 1915 accord­ing to its ser­i­al number.

For­mat45x107mm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 3503 (L. Colardeau, J. Richard, 1899)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 438123 (J. Richard, 1911/12)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 442122 (L. Colardeau, J. Richard, 1911/12)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 15700 (L. Colardeau, J. Richard, 1911/12)

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 443981 (J. Richard, 1911)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsglass slides

Object num­berM‑SF002

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved