André and Lieutier
Société André et Lieutier was a camera-maker with premises in Marseilles and Paris in the late 19th century.[1] The company is known for only one camera, a falling-plate magazine camera with clockwork mechanisms to automate some camera functions, designed by Marius Constantin Guitton de Giraudy.[2] Light functions - the rotary shutter and advancement of the plate-counter - are operated by one clockwork, and a second, triggered by the first, operates the falling-plate mechanism.[2][3]
The camera body is wooden, with black leather covering in some examples.[4][5][6]
The camera was made for several plate sizes. It has brilliant finders and bubble levels for vertical and horizontal orientation. It has a plate-counter dial on the front of the body, where also are located the winding keys for the two clockworks: the exact arrangement of the controls varies between examples.[6] The shutter speed is controlled by a lever selecting between instantaneous or 'B' ('Pose') shutter, and a dial offering four instantaneous speeds (numbered 1 to 4).[5] The shutter release is a large button at the front of the right side of the camera. The clockwork mechanisms supposedly allow a full magazine of twelve plates to be exposed in succession in fifteen seconds.[6]
There is a leather handle on the top of the camera, a maker's plate identifying the camera as the 'Appareil Guitton de Giraudy', and in some examples, Guitton de Giraudy's signature (as 'G. de G.') is engraved in the wood.[5]
Notes
- ↑ The maker's plates on some examples (cited below) give the address 9 Rue Pavillon, Marseille; the British Patent (also cited below) gives the address 21 Boulevard Poissonnière, Paris, for both the company and inventor.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 British Patent 6985 of 1894, Improvements in automatic photographic apparatus, filed 7 April 1894 and granted 9 February 1895 to Guitton de Giraudy as assignor to André et Lieutier; at Espacenet, the patent search facility of the European Patent Office. Also Swiss Patent 8157/183, Appareil à photopraphier à fonctionnement automatique (automatic-functioning camera), granted on 5 January 1895, and being an extension of an earlier patent 8157 dated April 1894. The British Patent also refers to an earlier patent, perhaps the same one, from which the protection under the British Patent takes its commencement date of 9 September 1893.
- ↑ US Patent 536514, Magazine camera, filed 25 April 1894 and granted to Guitton de Giraudy as assignor of one half the rights to André et Lieutier; at Google Patents (OCR text, with three diagrams)
- ↑ 9x12 cm Guitton de Giraudy camera with 150 mm f/9 Carl Zeiss Jena Anastigmat, and with black leather covering; offered for sale at Camera Auction 26, on 21 November 2014, by Westlicht Photographica Auction; several excellent photos of the camera.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 13x18 cm Guitton de Giraudy camera with 172 mm f/9 CZJ Series IIIa anastigmat, and with polished, uncovered wooden body; sold by Antiq-Photo of Paris; several excellent photos of the camera.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 9x12 cm camera in the stock of Photonicéphore, with different arrangement of controls from that at Westlicht. The notes state that twelve plates can be exposed in fifteen seconds.
