Record Details

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Name/TitleStere­o­scope ‘à sphères parallèles’

About this objectThe stere­o­scope ‘à sphères par­al­lèles’ was patent­ed on 26 Decem­ber 1857 by the French opti­cian Jules Fleury Her­magis (1835–1906). At a time when most stere­o­scopes relied on prisms, Her­magis devel­oped a design employ­ing lens­es instead of prisms. Accord­ing to the patent, the new opti­cal arrange­ment was intend­ed to improve stereo­scop­ic vision while reduc­ing eye fatigue and min­i­miz­ing the image dis­tor­tions com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with prism-based systems.
His devel­op­ment emerged dur­ing the rapid expan­sion of stere­oscopy in France fol­low­ing the Lon­don Uni­ver­sal Exhi­bi­tion. It was pre­sent­ed to the French Pho­to­graph­ic Soci­ety on 19 Feb­ru­ary 1858 and again on 21 Decem­ber 1858. The sec­ond pre­sen­ta­tion also served to clar­i­fy a con­tem­po­rary dis­pute between Her­magis and Claudet, who claimed pri­or­i­ty in the use of lens­es rather than prisms in stereo­scop­ic instruments.

Place MadeFrance

Mak­erHer­magis, Jules Fleury

Mak­er RoleMan­u­fac­tur­er

Date Madec. 1858

Tech­niqueSin­gle-view, manually

Tech­niqueFocus, lens board

Peri­od1850–1892

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Descrip­tionHer­magis came from a fam­i­ly of opti­cians. The son of Hyacinthe Her­magis, he lat­er took over the fam­i­ly busi­ness at 18 Rue Ram­buteau in Paris, a firm spe­cial­iz­ing in pre­ci­sion optics and pho­to­graph­ic sup­plies that had been found­ed in 1845. Con­tin­u­ing his work on stereo­scop­ic optics, he obtained a sec­ond patent on 29 Novem­ber 1865 for a more advanced sys­tem of com­bined lens­es. Although more com­plex than the present design, the lat­er sys­tem offered improved opti­cal per­for­mance and reflect­ed Her­mag­is’s ongo­ing efforts to refine stereo­scop­ic view­ing technology.
In the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry, the Her­magis firm also mar­ket­ed prod­ucts man­u­fac­tured by Mat­tey under the Her­magis label.

For­mat8.5x17cm

Object TypeStere­o­scope

Sub­ject and Asso­ci­a­tion Key­wordsFR 34862 (J. Fleury-Her­magis, 1857)

Medi­um and Mate­ri­alsOpaque and Transparent

Object num­berM‑SH168

Copy­right LicenceAll rights reserved

Addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion or cor­rec­tions are very wel­come. Please send an e‑mail to mail@stereoscopicmuseum.org.