Scenographe Camera

Designed by Dr. Ernest Candeze, Belgium
Manufactured by E. Deyrolle Fils, Paris
Ca. 1876

Ex-collection Michael Kramer

A beautiful and unique hand-and-stand camera, the Scenographe was designed around 1874 and represented an effort to give compactness to a camera. It was constructed with light-weight wooden struts, brass fittings, and used a flexible, silk-like cloth bellows. This particular model is early with the bright green bellows and gold lettering. It had an eye-level wire view finder, mounted on the top of the camera. The brass lens was an achromatic miniscus, and the lens cap served as the shutter. It took pictures measuring approximately 4” x 5 1/2” in size, suitable for the then-popular cabinet card photo. The Scenographe was introduced at a time when dry plates were still in their infancy.