A pair of 6th order navigation lights from the Seine Estuary at the Harbour of Honfleur, by Sautter-Harlé of Paris. Circa 1900.

With internal 6^th order 300 mm Fresnel lenses by Barbier, Bénard & Turenne of Paris.

Height: 140 cm – 55 inches.

Diameter: 59 cm – 23 inches.

Sautter-Harlé was a founded in 1852 by Louis Sautter (1825-1912). The company is also known under the names of “Sautter, Lemonnier et Cie” and “Sautter, Harlé et Cie”.

After the death in 1827 of Augustin Fresnel , his brother Léonor Fresnel (1790-1869) replaced him at the Lighthouse Commission and continued the equipment in lighthouses on the French coast. His successor in 1846, the architect and engineer Léonce Reynaud as director of the Lighthouse and Beacon Service, collaborated with the engineer Louis Sautter. Sautter purchased the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Soleil ‘s in 1853, which built optics for maritime lighthouses . He began to improve the lens designs that had previously been made by the Soleil workshop and introduced new construction methods and increased the quantity and quality of lenses produced.

In October 1853 Louis Sautter delivers his first Fresnel optics for the Alcatraz lighthouse, San Francisco, commissioned by the American Lighthouse Board, which converted all its lighthouses between 1853 and 1860 with Fresnel lenses. Louis Sautter obtained half of the American orders for optics for US lighthouses.

In 1854 Louis Sautter filed his first patent relating to the construction of lighthouse lighting: “A modification in the construction of the mechanical part of the rotating devices, for headlights with flashing lenses, and a new system of lamps for lighting these lighthouses”. Sautter was also developing manufacturing methods to improve the size of the glass that can be produced by the Saint-Gobain company.

Sautter-Harlé produced the first electric arc lanterns in 1863 for the Hève lighthouses, in the Seine estuary.

Louis Sautter collaborates with the engineer Gustave Eiffel, in November 1868 they filed a patent application (No. 83080) for “Improvements in the construction of iron towers, and especially lighthouse towers” ​​by interposing metal crowns securing the entire structure”.

Numerous lenticular lighthouses have been equipped by Louis Sautter’s company, in France and throughout the world. In 1889, the company had delivered equipment for 2,061 lighthouses including 143 first order lighthouses.