Featured Tissue Stereographs

Hi Everyone, just wanted to share with you a recent purchase I made. I bought a 19th century hand held stereoviewer and a collection of stereographs. Some of the stereographs were made by the GAF company in the late 1800s and I realised that these were made of tissue. Tissue stereographs can mean only one thing; the photos had been hand coloured between the photo and the tissue backing layer so that when you have light behind you, the picture appears as black and white 3D picture but when you hold it up to the light it is coloured. These photos are beautiful and although I haven’t quite captured how great they look hopefully the picture will give you some idea.

 

There are some that are "trick" based, where when you shine a light from the back the subject matter could look like it's on fire, or it goes from day to night with lit candles and a fireplace. They are something that never really caught on in the US, though there were a few companies that put them out in limited numbers.

These French cards are probably the most well known/popular tissue series. https://www.londonstereo.com/diableries/index.html

 

Being in the U.K. it’s probably easier to find these French ones but they can be expensive. Fortunately these were hidden in a pile of others so I got them for practically no money at all. . Thanks for the link. They look fascinating and the one thing about stereographs is that you don’t have to own them to enjoy them. You can download them for free on tablets from all sorts of places like the J Getty Museum and then use your stereoscope to view it. Takes a bit of practice but works well once you get it figured out.

 

Nice find, @Rabid Collector !

 

Thanks Figtree3 . I bought the first one by mistake, worked out what it was when I got home, kicked myself because there were five others I had left behind, went back to the shop a month later and by some miracle they were still there!

 

Cool!