Object of the Day: A Double-sided Stereograph

Click on image to be novel.

Made to be viewed in a stereoscope, a popular novelty of the Nineteenth Century, these cards feature side-by-side, off-set pictures which, when seen through the viewer, would appear as a 3-D image. A number of companies produced such cards and viewers. Every so often, as in this case, the stereographs were hand-colored.

I’m not sure who published this stereograph. There’s no mark whatsoever. What’s unusual about it is that it’s two sided. Prior to seeing these few which were recently added to my collection, I’d not come across other two-sided stereographs. Usually, this would have been prohibitive because of the intention curve given to most cards in order to produce the 3-D effect. Images on the back would have curved the wrong way and made a distorted image. However, this card is flat, allowing for a double-sided image. Since I don’t actually have a stereoscope, I can’t see how the flatness alters the dimension of the final image. 

The card boasts off-set images of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral on one side and Spain’s Court of the Fishes at The Alhambra on the other. Such architectural images were popular themes for stereographs as they provided opportunities for visual depth.

You can click on this one, too.