Photoret' spy camera

The Photoret, described as a ‘magazine snap-shot camera’, is a miniaturised ‘spy camera’. As described in one specialist magazine, ‘You show it to a friend, you press on the imitation winder to release the shutter and you have the portrait of the said friend’. Made in the United States by the Magic Introduction Company in New York, it was shown to the Société Française de Photographie in 1894 and was very probably marketed by the Comptoir Général de Photographie, directed by Léon Gaumont, in Paris. This ingenious ‘photographic toy’ aroused curiosity and the Photoret soon became all the rage with French amateur photographers. This Photeret, in the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers since 1926, was formerly in Gabriel Cromer’s famous collection.