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Nom
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Oberhauser (also Oberhaeuser) Georges
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Date de naissance
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16 July 1798
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Date de mort
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10 January 1868
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Lieu de naissance
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Alvensleben (Hesse)
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Lieu de mort
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Paris
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Couverture temporelle
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1/2 19th century
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Couverture spatiale
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Paris
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Biographie
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Oberhauser was born in Alvensleben (Hess). After acquiring the rudiments of optics from his instrument-maker father, in 1812 he was apprenticed as a mechanician in Wurzberg, transferring to Gambey in Paris in 1818. He began working on his own account in 1822 making microscopes and surveying instruments. He is said to have constructed some 3000 microscopes between 1831 and 1856 (1). From 1830 onwards he worked in collaboration with Achille Trécourt and Bouquet but seems to have been on his own again from c. 1835. His diaphragmation apparatus was a successful innovation adopted by other makers, and in 1838, with Trécourt, he took out a patent for an achromatic microscope of which the tube and stage could be turned around the optical axis thus allowing it to be illuminated from different angles without the focus or centring being affected (2). Thanks to the advocacy of John Hughes Bennett, Professor of what would become physiology, in Edinburgh, Britain was Oberhauser's chief market for his student oriented 'drum' microscope (3). The origin of the 'horse-shoe' base, widely used in the later 19th and early 20th centuries, is also associated with Oberhauser as are improvements to the camera lucida. Some three thousand microscopes were produced in his workshops during his twenty eight years of operation together with their accessories and other devices such as his optical drawing device (4). From 1857 he worked in partnership with his nephew Edmond Hartnak who succeeded to his business in 1864.
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Notes biographiques
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1 Brachner 146.
2 Examples, Bonhams 26. 3. 2002 lot 16; Tesseract 72 N° 11. Cf. Recueil de la Société Polytechnique, 3rd ser. N° 60, 1842, 273.
3 Otto. Morrison-Low (Bennet) 183, 189.
4 For a detailed discussion of nine microscopes by Oberhauser revealilng their minor variations, see Otto, passim.
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Bibliographie
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'Sur un appareil de M. Strauss, destiné à la fabrication des lentilles', Comptes rendus…des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, xx 1845.
'Sur les microscopes d'éclairage oblique', Comptes rendus…des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, xxiv 1847, 1052-53.
avec Trécourt
'Microscope disposé à ce qu'on puisse éclairer successivement', Comptes rendus…des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, iv 1837.
'Sur la nature des lignes qui s'observent dans les diamants travaillés, et sur l'effet de ces lignes dans les diamants employés comme lentilles', Comptes rendus…des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, v 1837, 638-39.
'Microscope achromatique donnant tous les grossissements de 0 à 500, sans changement des verres', Comptes rendus…des séances de l'Académie des Sciences, ix 1839, 322-23.
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Adresse ; enseigne ; période ; source
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1830-51: 19, place Dauphine Paris Alm Com 1839, 694; Almanach du Commerce (1844-51)
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Exposition année ; ville ; type ; récompense
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1849 Paris Industrie Nationale Silver medal
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Brevet
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Microscope achromatique vertical, 1838-12-05 France
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Identifiant
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2294
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ark:/18469/1q2h6
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Description
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G. Oberh