Record Details

Name/TitleChain-stere­o­scope ‘Le Phénix’ with inter­change­able belt

About this object’Le Phénix’ is an ultra-com­pact revolv­ing stere­o­scope. It fea­tures a belt with wood­en bars that hold detach­able met­al stere­oview hold­ers. The belt is sus­pend­ed on a four-sided prism met­al bar with a large knob on the right end. Turn­ing the knob advances the images sequen­tial­ly. Flip­ping back the top of the view­er, lift­ing the belt enables the bar to slide out for easy belt replace­ment. A fold-out mir­ror at the back adjusts light for opti­mal image illumination.
The view­er illus­trat­ed seems to be an ear­ly ver­sion with all wood­en knobs, while oth­er ver­sions have met­al knobs often seen on oth­er Bize devices. The lat­er ver­sion has a sec­ond large knob on the left side that has to be unscrewed to exchange the belt.
In-depth infor­ma­tion on ‘Le Phénix’ and Bize can be found on André Ruiter’s blog: Phénix

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erBize, Lucien

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Madec. 1908

Series TitlePhenix

Tech­niqueMul­ti-view, chain-based

Tech­niqueFocus, lens tubes

Peri­od1893–1939

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tion’Le Phénix’ is a rare revolv­ing stere­o­scope designed by Lucien Albert Bize, a pio­neer in com­pact stere­o­scope inno­va­tion in ear­ly 20th-cen­tu­ry France. Intro­duced in 1908 along­side ‘Le Min­imus’ and ‘Le Mul­ti­phote’, it fea­tures an inter­change­able belt sys­tem for 45 × 107 mm slides, ini­tial­ly hold­ing 48 and lat­er 60 images, with a 6 × 13 cm ver­sion also pro­duced. 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

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsGlass Slides

Object num­berM‑ST079

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