The Ontophote is a mul­ti-view table­top stere­o­scope, avail­able for the 6x13cm and 45x107mm for­mats. It was made of either var­nished mahogany or waxed walnut.
A hand-cranked mechan­i­cal sys­tem allows the user to view sequen­tial­ly the 20 indi­vid­ual images loaded into an inter­change­able tray, with for­ward or back­ward move­ment. The stere­o­scope fea­tures an entire­ly met­al focus­ing mech­a­nism and a sys­tem for adjust­ing the dis­tance between the eye­pieces by means of con­nect­ing rods, with the set­ting indi­cat­ed on a grad­u­at­ed scale.
The eye­pieces are mount­ed with bay­o­net fit­tings and can be inter­changed for short‑, medium‑, or long-focus view­ing. The Ontophote can be fit­ted with an illu­mi­na­tion lantern attached by two screws at the rear. It can also be con­vert­ed into a monoc­u­lar pro­jec­tion lantern by remov­ing the ground-glass and one of the eye­pieces, which is then replaced by a pro­jec­tion lens such as a Cin­do or Her­magis Series A lens.
As an option, a base was avail­able for stor­ing the image trays.
(from: Moulin­ier et al. His­toires de vision­neuses stéréo­scopiques français­es. Limo­ges, 2025, pp. 55–56. Author’s translation.)