Short­ly 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. The 8.5x17cm ‘Le Tax­iphote No. 2’ was first men­tioned in 1903, van­ished from the cat­a­logue in 1930 and is hard to find today. The view­er illus­trat­ed was pro­duced in 1904 or 1905 accord­ing to its ser­i­al number.
All mod­els were avail­able in two stan­dard ver­sions, one in waxed wal­nut and one in pol­ished mahogany. The view­er illus­trat­ed is a deluxe, spe­cial edi­tion mod­el which has addi­tion­al molds and orna­ments and was list­ed in the cat­a­logue under ‘Style Louis XVI’. These are rare, very sought after and demand a much high­er price than the stan­dard models.
More­over, this view­er was export­ed and sold in Vien­na by Lech­n­er & Müller, which gives it a spe­cial his­tor­i­cal relevance.