Though it appears fair­ly com­mon, this stere­o­scope holds a unique place in stereo­scop­ic his­to­ry. Lit­tle is known about the ‘Pho­to Comp­toir Artis­tique,’ a pho­tog­ra­phy shop in Roubaix near Lille, oper­at­ed by Madame Dendiev­el from at least 1899 to 1912. At the 1912 annu­al pho­to­graph­ic expo­si­tion in Roubaix, she received a ‘Diplôme d’honneur.’ Among the judges was Paul Sorel, devel­op­er of the ‘Hemdé’ stereo view­ers and own­er of the com­pa­ny at the time. He passed away the fol­low­ing year.
A hall­mark of ‘Hemdé’ view­ers was their wood­en slide trays, but their true inno­va­tion lay in the crank mech­a­nism. Using a clev­er­ly thread­ed rod, it both lift­ed slides into posi­tion and moved the tray, enabling smooth for­ward and back­ward nav­i­ga­tion. The mech­a­nism was patent­ed in 1907 by Paul Sorel, Émile Cuny, and Mau­rice Delécaille.
The view­er illus­trat­ed fea­tures both ele­ments, though the trays lack brand­ing. How­ev­er, its design sug­gests it pre­dates the patent. The brand ‘Hemdé’ was already used by Delé­caille for pho­to­graph­ic equip­ment pri­or to the 1907 patent and was con­tin­ued by Sorel (respec­tive­ly his wid­ow) until the 1920s. There were also view­ers com­plete­ly iden­ti­cal to ‘Hemdé’ view­ers but brand­ed ‘E. Cuny’, also point­ing to ear­ly versions.
Com­pared to lat­er mass-pro­duced mod­els, the mech­a­nism of this view­er is stur­dier, with more wood­en struts — sug­gest­ing it was still in devel­op­ment. The strongest indi­ca­tion that it is an ear­ly, short-lived pro­to­type is its unique tray-load­ing method: via a small door on the right side, a high­ly uncom­mon fea­ture among tray stereoscopes.