Tourtin
Émile Tourtin (1844-1931) was a photographer and painter from Avignon. He and his brother Joséph established a studio business (confusingly, working as 'Joséph-Émile Tourtin') at 32 Rue Louis-le-Grand, close to the Place de l'Opéra in Paris.[1] Many of his portrait photographs, often of theatre actors, may be found on the web.[2]
Tourtin made and presumably sold what is thought to be the first French reflex camera, the Orthoscope, an SLR for 9x12cm plates.[3] The example cited, described by the auctioneer as a 'Luxus' example, has a varnished wooden body, and the reflex focusing screen is shaded beneath a red leather bellows, and viewed through a hole in this. The lens is a Darlot Planigraphe with an aperture wheel, and it has a six-speed mechanical shutter. It is said to be stamped with the number 4 inside, and the notes suggest that five or fewer cameras may have been made. Nevertheless, it has an ornate engraved brass lens-cover.
Two examples of a similar SLR camera, the Lynx, also for 9x12cm plates, have been seen.[4][5] The camera has a simpler wooden focusing hood, with a binocular magnifier. It carries an ivorine plaque naming it as the 'détective Tourtin LYNX, modèle 1897'. It has a Darlot lens with an iris diaphragm and a focusing screw, and a six-speed shutter. The plates are carried in wooden double dark-slides, in what is more or less a manually-operated magazine at the rear of the camera.
Notes
- ↑ Émile Tourtin at French Wikipedia.
- ↑ Tourtin portraits at the Getty Museum, and available for licensing at Getty Images.
- ↑ Orthoscope, sold at the 34th Leitz Photographica Auction, in June 2019.
- ↑ Lynx, also sold at the 34th Leitz Auction.
- ↑ Lynx sold at the fourth Westlicht Auction, in November 2003; only one photo of the camera.
