Stanhope, the medium hidden in a pen
When I was a primary school student in the early 1980s, my friend Lisa brought a strange pen to school. When we looked through a tiny opening at the end of the pen, erotic images appeared—hardly compatible with socialism. Turning a small ring brought several enlightening slides into view. At the time, I had no idea that I was holding one of the last remnants of a fashion almost a century old.
The pen shown above is an American-made writing instrument that was very popular from the end of the 19th century until the first decade of the 20th century, but similar pens were still in circulation until the 1980s. Its main feature is the Stanhope lens in the centre, which, when held up to the eye, reveals the photograph inside - most often of a historical site or tourist attraction, but there have also been images of advertising, Jesus, famous people, cityscapes and erotic content. Jewellery, miniature binoculars, ink pots, letter openers, watch keys, pocket watches, needle holders, thimbles, scissors, pens, pencils, knives, pipes, perfume bottle caps - practically anything has been fitted with the little device. Below are some of the objects fitted with a Stanhope viewer (the small dot marks the viewing aperture).
Development history
Within a few decades of the invention of photography, innovators began experimenting with the production of tiny microphotographs. In 1839, a man called John Benjamin Dancer succeeded in producing a microphotograph from a negative, measuring 3 square millimetres, but this could not be seen with the naked eye, only with a microscope. Another innovator, the Frenchman René Dagron, solved the problem in 1857. He combined a simple cylindrical, single-lens microscope invented by Lord Stanhope 50 years earlier with a microphotograph.
The former was reduced in size and its lens surfaces reshaped, while the latter was glued to one end of the now tiny "lens tube", which is barely 1 cm long. By holding the device up to the eye, the image became visible. He called it a Stanhope lens and patented the small viewer, which showed the photograph at a magnification of 300x.
The Stanhope could be built into any object. Dagron, who also had excellent business sense, invented this and set up a small factory to manufacture it on a large scale. And not for nothing, because it soon became fashionable to own and look at secret microphotographs hidden in various objects of daily use, and remained trendy for decades.
In 1862, Dagron presented the stanhope at the London World's Fair, and even Queen Victoria saw the novelty (a microphotograph of her was later taken). By then, Dagron's factory employed 150 people and produced 12,000 objects a day.
The key to the success of the stanhope was the appeal of an everyday object as a medium. It can also be seen as the 'gadget' of the age. The images varied in size and resolution. On the other hand, the resolution of the thumbnail images made it possible to experience monumentality at high magnification. It was a kind of magical device, because peering into the tiny slit projected the image onto the entire retina. Depending on the mood of the photo, the lenses were coloured, and later the image was coloured.
According to data gathered from the press of the time, the English preferred micro-photographs of calendars or banknotes, the Italians preferred religious themes, and the Germans preferred the more daring photographs. Here are some of the 'bold' photos from the period:
Perhaps the most valuable of all pens is the 1918 Stanhope pen, a writing instrument made for Waterman’s 35th anniversary. The optical mechanism was placed in the upper part of the cap. The picture shows, not very excitingly, Waterman's own New York headquarters. The pen is priced at $2,000–3,000.
The stanhope is not completely dead. Handmade writing instruments are still produced today, with photographs supplied by customers when placing their orders embedded inside them. An Australian entrepreneur also sells a special miniature optical device into which the photo we send is inserted. Pictured below are some Stanhope pens and the tiny device.
2023. 03.