Galletas Chocolates Solsona Stereoscope

Spain, 1930s

This small, branded metal expandable stereo viewer was made for the cookie and chocolate company Galletas y Chocolates Solsona, in the style of the Fitaskop 2 viewer. In 1933, the company launched Volume 1 of their stereoview collection: 340 stereoviews covering over 30 European countries — their cities palaces, castles, monuments, monasteries, landscapes, and more. The views could be collected and stored in their “Album Foto-Estereoscopico”, a blue, hardcover album with detailed descriptive text and colorful illustrations for each country alongside slots to insert the stereoviews. The company stated:

“Solsona's stereoscopic album is … a very original work of art and a formidable educational instrument. In its pages you will not find a messy collection of dead photographs, but a wonderful selection of photographs that live through the stereoscope. For you and yours it will be a source of distraction and a means of culture, since through it you will acquire geographical, archaeological and architectural knowledge.”

They also make it a point to call out the enormous amount of work involved in creating this “monumental” stereoscopic project, stating that it “requires study and organization only comparable to that of great publishing works.” Volume 1 advertises that a total of 5 volumes would be created covering different parts of the world. We only have Volume 1 in our collection.

Pedro Solsona, founder of the company, had been in the pastry & chocolate business for a number of years before eventually moving to Barcelona. In 1929, the company was renamed “Galletas y Chocolates Solsona Rius SA”. They remained in business for decades, making the popular “222” cookie in 1965 which had a famously successful advertising campaign in the 1970s. They went out of business in 1977 after refusing to sell out to the German multinational Balshent.