Picked this up a few years ago at a vintage photographs show in California. It’s a glass lantern stereo slide (technically a stereo glass diapositive) I bought with about 6 or so others, as well as an old wood stereo slide viewer, in a fortunately brief moment when I thought I might like to become a collector of these things. (If I remember correctly, the slides I bought, which were on the cheap and poor quality end of the scale, ran about $20 each.)
Thought, what the hell, let’s see how the Epson scanner’s transparency adapter handles it, and was pleasantly surprised by the results. Naturally from this view you get nothing of the stereo slide’s three-dimensional qualities, nor even that sense of the floating image that all slides seem to have if you hold them up to the light.
The scene is of the “hanging houses” above the Huecar Gorge in the ancient city of Cuença in central Spain, about 150km from Madrid (the caption says “Maison de Cuença sur les Rochers de Jugar). There’s what I assume is a date on the bottom right corner of the slide, along with a name which could be that of the photographer or publisher, but I can’t be sure if it says “1909” or “1919” (nor can I read the name). I’ve reproduced that part below. Anyone have an idea what is written there?
It looks to me more like that second part is a word. Maybe a first and last name? It doesn’t really seem to fit as a number.
Dear Mr Easterwood
I would hazard a guess that the name is Benato and one of the great photographers of the era.
Best wishes.
Charlie