"A quotidian object would have a small peephole... "
November 3, 2015 6:51 AM   Subscribe

"The lenses measure less than a centimeter in length; the [often pornographic] photographs glued to them are the size of the head of a pin." The Kinsey Institute talks about Stanhopes, the Snapchat of the 1850s, made of everyday objects such as rings, thimbles and rosaries. posted by jessamyn (27 comments total) 41 users marked this as a favorite


 
bypassing microscopes to create microscopic images.

Does anyone understand that? How were microscopes "bypassed" here?
posted by thelonius at 7:28 AM on November 3, 2015


I think it's a bad paraphrase of this sentence from the Wikipedia article: Dagron bypassed the need for an expensive microscope to view the microscopic photographs by attaching the microphotograph at the end of a modified Stanhope lens.
posted by zamboni at 7:32 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


However, aside from the experiments of a few photographers, who made images
of naked people as soon as the technical limitations of long exposures had been overcome, there
are few extant nude daguerreotypes datable to before 1851. Joseph Slade, in his Pornography in
America, states that “within six years [of photography’s announcement in Paris] daguerreotypists
produced images of naked humans…”



Bibliothèque nationale de France internet search engine, McCauley does state that in 1861 [two years after the Stanhope was initially launched] Dagron et Compagnie attempted to register “microviews” with the Ministry of the Interior84, but that these were deemed “unauthorised” due to the nature of the photographs, titled “Surprised Bathers,” “La Joyeuse Orgie,” “L’Indiscret,” and “Léda”, and that some of these were approved on condition that they were not for sale, or alternately, if they were expressly for export.
That's just what you do with new technology, I guess!
posted by ignignokt at 7:34 AM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


(Also: Dagron!)
posted by ignignokt at 7:34 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm so used to digital images and pixelation problems that the fact that making these teeny tiny photos was apparently not really the tricky part of this compared to the lens assembly and getting everything in focus is startling to me.
posted by Wretch729 at 7:38 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


Surely there's got to be a movie set in the 1850s with a scene equivalent to the Dude's detective work in The Big Lebowski, where a spy goes to great lengths to see the secret thing his target has been examining with a Stanhope lens hidden in his snuffbox.
posted by straight at 7:53 AM on November 3, 2015 [5 favorites]


Also, from the wikipedia article jessamyn linked:
The Stanhope optical viewers were also mounted inside the bows of violins by French violin maker Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume, probably using Dagron's methods and equipment. The violin Stanhopes featured the portraits of famous people such as Paganini, Tourte and Stradivari.
posted by straight at 7:54 AM on November 3, 2015


The violin Stanhopes featured the portraits of famous people such as Paganini, Tourte and Stradivari.

NAKED
posted by briank at 7:56 AM on November 3, 2015 [25 favorites]


My dad has several of these (plastic ones, look like this) in an old box (along with brass knuckles and a switchblade) that his brother left with him when he got drafted. Never knew what they were called.
posted by phunniemee at 8:09 AM on November 3, 2015


NAKED

And in Stradivarius poses.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:14 AM on November 3, 2015 [4 favorites]


This must have made it into some grandfathers rant about how good kids of that day had it.

"Look at you kids with your Liliputian pornography doodads! Back in our day, all we had were erotic scrimshaws and we LIKED it that way!"
posted by dr_dank at 8:48 AM on November 3, 2015 [8 favorites]


You had me at the word peephole.
posted by fairmettle at 9:13 AM on November 3, 2015 [2 favorites]


Let the ebay search begin!
posted by ColdChef at 10:09 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


Back in the day, candidates both Republican and Democrat gave out Learned Pigs, small bronze porkers which could predict the winner if you looked up their rear ends.

Happily, they seem to be making a comeback.
posted by BWA at 10:33 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


"Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything! More, more, I'm still not satisfied!"
posted by lagomorphius at 11:05 AM on November 3, 2015


Back in the day, candidates both Republican and Democrat gave out Learned Pigs, small bronze porkers which could predict the winner if you looked up their rear ends.

There's just so many options here I don't even know where to start.
posted by leotrotsky at 11:13 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I can imagine if I were 14 years old in the 1850s I'd be peering excitedly into the cracks of everything I could get my hands on hoping to get lucky.
posted by overhauser at 11:18 AM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


I have one of these that shows me sitting next to a nun not naked eating my chicken and hush puppies at the 1977 Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science at Mt. Airy Lodge.

When I was a kid we were in a souvenir shop at Niagara Falls and I picked up one thinking there would be a picture of Niagara Falls inside. There wasn't.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:19 AM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


When I was a kid we were in a souvenir shop at Niagara Falls and I picked up one thinking there would be a picture of Niagara Falls inside. There wasn't.

...instead you found yourself peering excitedly into the cracks of everything?
posted by leotrotsky at 11:22 AM on November 3, 2015 [1 favorite]


I have one of these that shows me sitting next to a nun not naked eating my chicken and hush puppies at the 1977 Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science at Mt. Airy Lodge.

When I was a kid we were in a souvenir shop at Niagara Falls and I picked up one thinking there would be a picture of Niagara Falls inside. There wasn't.


I am reading this over and over, and you have left me with the very strong impression that you bought, in a gift shop at Niagara Falls, a tiny picture of yourself eating chicken next to a clothed nun, possibly from the future. That is like the plot of a James Blaylock story, and we know how those end.
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:32 AM on November 3, 2015 [11 favorites]


The Niagara Falls stanhope was more in the spirit of the 1850s. But keep trying, people - you never know where you might see me eating chicken.

I believe the kind of stanhopes made in the 70s were probably just 110 slide film and nothing high tech.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:40 AM on November 3, 2015 [3 favorites]


"Mt Airy Lodge" and "of everything" were just the Manchurian Candidate code phrases to unlock this nugget.
posted by dr_dank at 12:50 PM on November 3, 2015


Relevant: The Microminiatures of Hagop Sandaldjian
posted by christopherious at 3:06 PM on November 3, 2015


I have one of these that shows me sitting next to a nun not naked eating my chicken and hush puppies at the 1977 Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science at Mt. Airy Lodge.

The iPhone camera works surprisingly well. I could have cropped it, but I didn't. Looks like I only ate the hush puppies.
posted by lagomorphius at 7:12 PM on November 3, 2015 [8 favorites]


Back in the day, candidates both Republican and Democrat gave out Learned Pigs, small bronze porkers which could predict the winner if you looked up their rear ends.

You are David Cameron and I claim my £5
posted by Ned G at 4:02 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]



The iPhone camera works surprisingly well.


This photo is terrific, thanks so much for sharing it.
posted by jessamyn at 6:33 AM on November 4, 2015 [2 favorites]


This is the best thing ever.
posted by corb at 7:20 PM on December 1, 2015


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