Helmut Gernsheim & Alison Gernsheim, The History of Photography: From the Camera Obscura to the Beginning of the Modern Era

Stereoscopic photography 2 5 5
instrument would have been of no practical value. However, his suggestion made
little impression at first and he endeavoured vainly to induce several English opticians
to take up its manufacture. After trying for more than a year to overcome their
apathy, he eventually took his instrument to Paris in 1850, where the Abbe Moigno,
author of the compendious Repertoire d' optique moderne, was greatly impressed by the
wonderful effect of relief and was able to interest the optician JULES DUBOSCQ, who
at once realized its great future. For viewing opaque prints, light was admitted by Pl l l 8
opening a lid at the top of the box. Later on the instrument was adapted for viewing
transparent pictures on glass or translucent paper by replacing the solid bottom of
the stereoscope with a ground-glass screen.
At the Great Exhibition a number of stereoscopes of Duboscq's construction were
shown in conjunction with a beautiful set of stereoscopic daguerreotypes which
aroused Queen Victoria's admiration, and Duboscq made a specially elaborate stereoscope
for her. As a result of the Queen's interest he was flooded with orders. English
opticians also began to manufacture stereoscopes, and nearly a quarter of a million
instruments were sold in London and Paris within three months. Subsequently
Duboscq patented the stereoscope on 16 February l 8 52, and seized the instruments
and pictures of his Parisian competitors such as Gaudin, Soulier, and others. In the
ensuing lawsuit they were able to prove that Brewster himself had suggested all
forms of the instrument, and the patent was declared void on IO December 1857.
The leading daguerreotypists in London-Claudet, Beard, Mayall, Kilburn, and
Williams-immediately turned their attention to taking stereoscopic views of the
interior of the Crystal Palace and of the exhibits. Claudet succeeded also in taking
portraits and even groups, 'in one, as many as six full-length figures, the distinctness
and roundness of which is so lifelike as to be almost startling ; and so instantaneous is
the process by which the pictures are taken, that even a number of children, difficult
as it is to get them to sit steady, may be taken ·at once'.12 The group to which the
writer in The Illustrated London News referred is the charming 'Geography Lesson' Pl l 16
which came into the possession of the Gernsheim Collection with a large number of
stereoscopic daguerreotypes of the Great Exhibition by Claudet. Claudet took these
pictures with two cameras set up side by side-a binocular camera had not yet been
constructed-and the resulting pictures give a somewhat exaggerated rotundity and
an effect of small models because the lenses were farther apart than the distance between
the eyes. A selection of these photographs was sent to the Tsar of Russia, who,
unable to visit London, was so delighted to be able to form a correct impression of
the Exhibition that he presented Claudet with a diamond ring accompanied by a
letter complimenting him on the effect of relief obtained in the stereoscope. Claudet
proudly made a stereoscopic daguerreotype of the ring,13 an engraving of which was
published in The Illustrated London Nel/Js in April l 8 52.
Claudet devoted himself ardently to the improvement and development of stereoscopic
photography, striving ceaselessly to advance it, and he was largely instrumental
in securing its popularity. In January 1853 he gave a lecture on 'The History of the
Stereoscope and its Photographic Applications' at the Society of Arts, and for his
promotion of this branch of photography he received the Society's medal from its
President, Prince Albert. In March of the same year Claudet patented a folding pocket
stereoscope in which one stereoscopic daguerreotype-usually the portrait of its
owner or his family-was fitted in a little morocco leather case with a flap containing
two lenses. When opened it formed a box stereoscope. Pl l 19
A defect of the Brewster/Duboscq design was that the eyepieces were not adaptable
to various sights nor fitted with adjustments to suit people whose eyes were not the