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Antique Stanhopes - hand-carved bone, 7 pieces [136891]

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:150.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 500.00 USD
Antique Stanhopes - hand-carved bone, 7 pieces  [136891]
SOLD
100.00USD+ (25.00) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2021 Aug 08 @ 09:39UTC-7 : PDT/MST
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19th Century Stanhopes. Hand carved bone, intricate detail and design. 7 pieces.
1) Combination letter opener/ink dip pen that attaches together via threaded screw-in parts, letter opener part is missing; Image of several buildings labelled "Souvenir of Bournemouth / (?illegible) Novelty Stores"; 5.25" long
2) Another combo piece but letter opener part is detached, but present, with an image from the Columbian Exposition labelled "Chicago 1893 / Electrical Building / View Looking South Over the Lagoon"; 7.5" long, but broken into stanhope/pen part (4.25") and detached letter opener blade (3")
3) Fully intact combo unit but missing the lens/image; 9.25" long.
4) Letter opener only without metal ink dip pen insert, fully intact; 9.25" long.
5) Stand-alone stanhope with fish design and image of "The Last Supper - Lacene / Of Royal Museum -Stt Anne De Beaupre"; almost 4" long.
6-7) Two miniature binoculars; 1" x 1"; one is "Souvenir of Niagara Falls" with two separate images, the other is religious imagery of St. Anne De Beaupre and Basilica in 2 separate images.

Stanhopes or Stanho-scopes are optical devices that enable the viewing of micro photographs.
Novelty souvenirs that incorporated a tiny hidden image became popular during the 19th century and included objects such as ink pens, sewing accessories, letter openers and jewelry. The image is visible through a tiny hole with a magnified lens and can be found by holding the object up to a light. Images range from landscapes, to portraits, to event souvenirs, to religious icons and scenes and are about 1/10th an inch in diameter and 1/4 an inch long. These objects are named after the inventor of the Stanhope Lens, Lord Charles Stanhope, even though a further developed, modified lens called the Codding Magnifier, invented by Sir David Brewster, is used. Stanhopes were invented in 1857 by Rene Dragon after John Benjamin Dancer attached a microscope lens to a daquerreotype camera in 1839 and produced micro-photographs. By affixing the micro-images to a tiny, magnified lens, by 1860 Dagron was able to manufacture novelties with viewable microscopic photographs incorporated into common objects. He called them "bijoux photo-microscopiques" or "microscopic photo-jewelry" and in 1862 they gained instant popularity and world-wide attention after being displayed at the Exhibition in London.

Date: 1860-1900
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