Air racer and showman Roscoe Turner probably acquired this French camera when he was a balloon pilot in the Aviation Section in France in 1918-19. The hand-held camera was used to take promotional aerial photographs of Turner's 1920s barnstorming act and to take commercial photographs by aiming over the side of an open-cockpit airplane.
This object is on display in Boeing Aviation Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.