Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1899	Chapter Nineteen 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty 1911 +	Copyright
HOTDOC Internet Archive Channel	HOTDOC X Channel	HOTDOC You Tube Channel

_{Period: 1880 – 1884}

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This moment in pre cinema history began with four lenses that Herbert calls a “four-lens optical (or ‘magic’) lantern.” Taken as a negative on glass, they were transposed into positives.

These twelve portrait photos are from Bibliothèque du Film, (Cinémathèque française) via the Optilogue.

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By 1889, the four lens lantern was ready for practise, and Friese-Greene utilised it with flexible film at only five frames per second. William himself was the subject of some of these experiments with Rudge, as we’ve seen before in these well-known, silly-face poses of him.

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Driven to produce cinematography, tutor Rudge and student Friese-Greene gave us two seconds of movement on a screen

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Here, courtesy of The Optilogue, is pre cinema pioneer William Friese-Greene like no one alive today has ever seen him before. Produced with modern AI technology by the online genealogy platform My Heritage, with portrait photos provided by the National Science & Media Museum.

Is this how WFG looked while presenting his animated portraits of Hyde Park in 1890?

MUYBRIDGE’S OTHER DISK ARTIST
ERNST F. FABER
Ruth the mule was first photographed by Eadweard Muybridge and then, traced and filled in with 13 images of her kicking, by Erwin F. Faber onto a 12-inch disk for the Zoopraxiscope. Faber was the lesser-known artist and technician of two, the other being Thomas Eakins, who worked on hand-painted images for Muybridge’s projector in the 1880s and 1890s.

_{Animation Kingston-on-Thames Public Library}

Faber worked during the 1880s on the original 16‑inch glass projection discs for the Zoopraxiscope, helping Muybridge hand-paint the sequences directly from his photographs. These disks were part of Muybridge’s lecture performances between 1880 and 1895.

These were photographically printed from outlines drawn by Faber and then filled in. They were intended for sale at the 1893 Chicago fair but sold poorly and are extremely rare today. Only about 4 or 5 of the coloured paper discs are known to still exist.

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Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope developed in 1879, and publicly used during the 1880s–1890s, projected painted sequences on glass disks, often based on his photographic motion studies.

The painted figures on these glass disks weren’t always direct photographic tracings: some were stylized or idealized versions of movement. Erwin F. Faber was one of the painters commissioned by Muybridge to help translate motion images into circular painted frames on the glass plates used in the Zoopraxiscope.

This is similar to Thomas Eakins, who also worked at Penn U, and was a visual interpreter of Muybridge’s sequences, blending science and art.

Called the Heidi Wastweet ‘Muybridge Spinning Bronze Tribute Medallion’  based on Muybridge’s ‘The Horse in Motion’ 1878, animation by Sharon Niemczyk.

Faber wasn’t just a technician—he added artistic interpretation to the imagery, helping blur the line between scientific study and aesthetic presentation. This may be why some Zoopraxiscope disks show movement that doesn’t exactly match Muybridge’s sequential photographs. Faber may have taken liberties in continuity or Silhouette to make the motion more fluid or stylized.

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Faber isn’t well-documented in most of my primary sources. His name is buried in specialist literature like technical appendices or museum catalogues. Most recognition for the Zoopraxiscope went to Muybridge alone, even though painters like Faber were essential to the final product.

Eakins collaborated with Muybridge on some of the earliest 16‑inch glass projection disks with Faber, used in the US and European lectures from the 1880s to mid‑1890s. Faber worked later from 1892–1894 on the 12‑inch printed glass disks and the paper Phenakistoscope disks produced for sale at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair.

A rule-of-thumb I have found is that if it’s a 16-inch disk it’s probably an Eakins disk, and if 12-inches, likely Faber’s.

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Left
Twelve phases of Studies in Zoopraxography EM, copyright 1893, arranges for the Zoopraxiscope #33 Parrot Flying.

Right
Thirteen phases of Studies in Zoopraxography EM, copyright 1893, arranges for the Zoopraxiscope #34 Grecian Dancing Girls. Both believed to be Faber disks but cannot be verified.

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In total, about 71 known 12-inch glass disks and approximately 50 paper disks, some which are pictured here, were created in this later phase. Thomas Eakins ‘Waltzing Couple’ and ‘Athletes Boxing’ are both 16‑inch glass lecture disks.

Erwin F. Faber ‘Athletes Running’ and other athletic/human sequenced12‑inch coloured glass disks and rare paper Phenakistoscope disks.

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WHO’S DISK IS WHO’S
If the disk is a large, Silhouette‑style projection disk used during Muybridge’s lectures (1880s–mid‑1890s), it’s almost certainly associated with Thomas Eakins. If instead it’s one of the slightly smaller 12‑inch printed‑then‑hand‑coloured glass disks, or one of the World’s Fair paper disks (c. 1893), then you’re looking at work designed and drawn by Erwin F. Faber.

Finding images where attribution to Erwin F. Faber or Thomas Eakins is explicitly confirmed, can be tricky I have found, because many archival photos and museum scans lack clear labelling. I can safely say that:

🎨 The Waltzing Couple (image in Marta Braun’s Picturing Time [2000], Figure 8.2 [p142], showing the couple dancing)

🎨 Athletes Boxing (confirmed through the University of Pennsylvania archives [Muybridge’s home institution, where Eakins also worked] Are both confirmed Eakins disks.

The only disk that my research can absolutely identify as having been painted by Faber is:

🎨 Athletes Running (Hand-drawn and chromolithographed 12-inch paper Phenakistoscope disk from the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893) And I’ll stop there for fear of pretending to know more than I do.

1880s
ARTHUR ALBERT (ESMÉ) COLLINGS (1859–1936)
Collings was born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, England and began on his road to cinematography working at his father’s boot-making company until his passion for photography took over. He made no true contribution to pre cinema except by advancing the new medium alongside several pioneers.

One such pioneer was the already-established William Friese-Greene, who helped Collings establish a very prosperous company in Brighton, Liverpool and London (Piccadilly) beginning in the late 1880s.

Besides also being an illustrator and painter, Collings is one of the lesser-known but genuinely pioneering figures who did his part in bridging late Victorian photography with Edwardian moving pictures.

His early career focused on portrait miniatures and pictorial photography, often with strong painterly qualities.

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HIS MOVE TOWARD MOTION PHOTOGRAPHY
By the mid-1890s, Collings was experimenting with Chronophotographic and cinematographic techniques, very shortly after the first public demonstrations.

Collings’s early films are among the earliest narrative and what became known as erotic subjects known in British cinema. While many are lost, several short pieces survive such as this one called A Victorian Lady in Her Boudoir or Woman Undressing (1896) pushing the boundaries of what could be shown.

Around 1896, he began producing some of the earliest British motion pictures, both independently and in association with George Albert Smith and James Williamson, who together formed the so-called Brighton School — a cluster of experimental filmmakers active around Brighton and Hove (UK).

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On the left was is referred to as a Trade Plate (business card), image Sussex Photo History. On the right is a mother and her daughters posing in one of the Friese Greene & Collings studios, image Royal Pavilion & Museums, Brighton & Hove.

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Stylistically, his work shows strong links to the photographic studio tradition — static camera, theatrical composition, and emphasis on lighting and gesture rather than editing or motion continuity.

Pictured: The photographic studios run by the firm of Friese Greene & Collings as detailed on the reverse of a cabinet portrait c. 887. This young girl is unknown to time. Images Sussex Photo History.

Collings’s contribution sits at a critical junction between pre cinema and early cinema. His work translates the pictorialism of Victorian photographic tableaux into the new temporal medium — a direct descendant of Magic Lantern slide poses and “living photographs.”

The Brighton School milieu itself emerged from lantern exhibition culture; many of its members (including Collings) were already using projection techniques for commercial portraiture or optical entertainments before adopting film.

His films labelled erotic, echoed earlier poses plastiques / tableau vivant and lantern Dissolving Views that combined still images, coloured light, and implied motion.

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Here is an illustration of a photographic studio employing electric light in the 1880s. Esmé Collings fell out with his business partner William Friese-Greene over the cost of supplying electricity to their Piccadilly studio.

_{Image Sussex Photo History}

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Collings is one of the lesser-known but genuinely pioneering figures who did his part in bridging late Victorian photography with Edwardian moving pictures

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Esmé Collings withdrew from filmmaking almost as quickly as he entered it. By the early 1900s he returned to still photography and painting, operating studios in Liverpool and London into the 1910s.

His cinematographic work, though brief, was rediscovered and reassessed in the 1970s and 1980s as scholars mapped the Brighton pioneers’ role in the birth of narrative film.

Commonly called Children Paddling, this short 48 second film of Esmé Collings shows children being supervised at the sea shore in 1896. The boy is far more interested in the camera than he is with the sea or the girls.

Collings was one of the earliest British filmmakers, emerging directly from the photographic and lantern world. His 1896 films, studio-based, erotic, and tableau-like embody the transition from static pictorial illusion to projected moving image.

Though overshadowed by contemporaries like Friese-Greene, Smith and Williamson, Collings’s work stands as a vital pre cinema bridge, a photographer translating Victorian visual conventions into motion for the first time.

FIBRE OPTICS IN 1880
TRANSMITTING SOUND THROUGH LIGHT
THE PHOTOPHONE OF BELL AND TAINTER
Scottish-born scientist and inventor, Alexander Graham Bell regarded the Photophone as his most significant creation, even though he is most recognized for creating the telephone. On 3 June 1880, Bell sent the first wireless telephone message using his newly created Photophone, an appliance that could send sound through a beam of light.

Bell owned four patents for the Photophone and manufactured it with the help of an assistant, Charles Sumner Tainter (1854-1940). The first wireless voice transmission spanned 700 feet.

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Bell’s Photophone worked by projecting his voice toward a sending mirror. Vibrations in the voice caused oscillations in the mirror. Take a look at the side-view mirror of your car next time you have the volume cranked up.

Bell then directed sunlight into the sending mirror, capturing and projecting the mirror’s oscillations toward a receiving mirror, where the signals were converted back into sound at the projection’s end.

The Photophone and the Telephone were similar devices, but the Photophone projected information using light, whilst the Telephone used electricity through a wire.

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_{Image Apic / Hulton Archive / Getty}

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Things changed over a century later, when fibre optics were invented in the 1970s, allowing light to be sent securely. Indeed, Bell’s Photophone is regarded as the forerunner of the present fibre optic telecommunications technology, which is commonly utilized to send telephone, cable, and internet signals across long distances.

In an interview later in life, Bell proclaimed, “In the importance of the principles involved, I regard the photophone as the greatest invention I have ever made; greater than the telephone.”  Little did we know at the time, that light will also transmit pictures.

WATCH this video that puts the Photophone into perspective. It runs three minutes, twelve seconds.

They could be operated in-hand or placed in a Magic Lantern and broadcast to a gallery of people. Unlike standard slides that show a single static image, mechanical slides incorporate moving parts—typically operated by levers, pulleys, or rotating disks—to create simple animations or transitions.

Sometimes all that was needed to create the animation, was the tip of a finger. These slides were often hand-painted on glass and used for entertainment, education, or storytelling. All slides shown are from the Virtueel toverlantaarnmuseun de Luikerwaal and my friend Henc de Roo.

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🎞️Rackwork or Lever-action slides – Use sliding glass panels or levers to animate part of the image (e.g., a person waving, eyes moving, a wheel turning).

🎞️ Chromatrope slides – Use rotating coloured disks to create kaleidoscopic effects.

🎞️Dissolving views – Use two overlapping slides and a mechanical dimmer to transition between scenes, like day turning to night.

🎞️Slipping slides – Have images that slide across to change the scene or motion.

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Here’s two Magic Lantern slides called Girl Skipping and Dog Skipping. The speed at which the lass skips can be varied according to the enthusiasm of the user. Same for the dog. These hand-painted slides were common in Victorian Magic Lantern shows, a form of pre cinema projection entertainment.

The frame in your image (wood and metal mount) is a giveaway — it’s consistent with British or German-made mechanical lantern slides, especially those manufactured by Ernemann in Germany, or Carpenter & Westley, or Newton & Company in the UK.

They may have also been manufactured by anonymous cottage-industry producers in England, France, and Germany. The skipping motion is achieved via internal mechanical gears or a sliding lever that animates the limbs or rope in a loop.

These were used both for education and entertainment, and animations like skipping, walking, or dancing were very common.

^{Animation de Luikerwaal}

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The round glass slide mounted in wood and brass hardware, with a hand crank mechanism, is characteristic of rack-and-pinion slides used in higher-end lanterns. The circular movement of the windmill sails is driven by internal gears powered by the crank on the side — an early mechanical animation technique.

The painted scene (with fine pastoral detail) suggests either German or British manufacture, possibly, Ernst Plank (Germany), Gebrüder Bing (Germany), or Newton & Company, W. C. Hughes, or Carpenter & Westley (UK). They were a hit in Victorian parlour shows and educational lectures, offering both novelty and charm.

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A lever-type slide showing two women in front of a bath carriage that brought them to the edge of the sea. The women are fully dressed in vintage bath suits. When the lever is moved up and down the younger girl jumps in the water while the elder one holds her hands.

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The urge to animate projected pictures led to the development of several inventive mechanical slides

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A double-slipping slide showing three performing acrobats in the top left, and three other hilarious Mechanical Magic Lantern Slides. Wonderful family motion entertainment taking place in the parlours and living rooms of the world, with fluid motion just around the corner in the form of Cinematography.

^{Animations de Luikerwaal}

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Below is a section of La Daguerréotypomanie, which was a lithograph produced by Theodore Maurisset for the inauguration of the Daguerreotype invention’s commercial introduction to the public following Arago’s announcement in 1839. Cameras everywhere.

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^{Image the Friedrich Schiller University Jena Museum via the Linda Hall Library}

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These are six tourism and marketing Daguerreotypes, showing views of San Francisco from 1853. Photography has now been incorporated into the tourism and marketing industry.

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Immediately below is Lewis Carroll’s original sepia ink illustration for how he wanted Alice of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland fame, to look like.

^{Image Public Domain Review}

“What is the use of a book,” asked the character of Alice in the beginning of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “without pictures or conversations?” This, being in reference to her sister’s house with no pictures.

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WORLD’S OLDEST OPERATING CINEMA
Built in 1889, it’s 133 years young in 2023, and the world’s oldest surviving Cinema. It’s still in operation and is called Cinéma Eden Théâtre at La Ciotat on the Côte d’Azur near Marseilles.

Left is the original exterior. Right is the modern interior.

1880
JOSEPH BOGGS BEALE (1841-1926)
The most famous of American Lanternists, Beale saw his first lantern show as a child. In his professional career he delivered a complete repertoire of shows including themes like Christmas, history, politics, great literature & religion.

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one of the first great screen artistes, being highly skilled at manipulating projected pictures and creating a cinematic tale for his audiences

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The Beale family came from the theatrical world with a background in stage productions, various types of concerts, minstrel shows, Panoramas and Magic Lantern shows.

Joseph’s uncle Edmund Beale was a professional Panorama showman himself.

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Beale was first published in November 1865 when he drew this Panoramic Base-Ball Match illustration for Harper’s Weekly.

This began his career. He was soon seen in other major national periodicals like Daily Graphic and Frank Leslie’s Weekly.

^{Image The Henry Ford}

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Joseph Boggs Beale saw the narrative potential of his images when they were projected onto a screen in a theatre or other venue.

From one of his pictures for the Life of Benjamin Franklin series seen here, Beale depicts a crucial moment in his nation’s founding.

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Beale produced lantern slides that have been dubbed as “cinematic.”

He is regarded as one of the first great screen artistes, being highly skilled at manipulating projected pictures and creating a cinematic tale for his audiences.

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By 1900, Magic Lantern slide performances were in decline both in homes and in public venues. The progress of Motion Pictures, gaining speed by the 1880s, gradually overtook lantern slide entertainment.

Motion Pictures was now dominating the screen entertainment business.

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With Beale’s demise in 1926, many of his paintings, slides and drawings can be found today in lantern societies, museums and private collections.

Portrait of Joseph Boggs Beale late in life, circa 1915.

^{Image The Henry Ford}

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Pictured is Betsy Ross Showing the First Flag in 1777 plate reproduced from an original painting by Joseph Boggs Beale. Images Modern Enterprises Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Also pictured is the back of the plate.

^{Images the Modern Enterprises Philadelphia}

By The Way, Betsy Ross, the seamstress of America’s first flag, was Beale’s great-aunt.

Due to a possible wager regarding the legs of a horse when running, Muybridge began to pave the way for Cinematography to become an eventual reality of this world.

It was almost as if he knew the extent to which his work was taking, and the direction it would go in the next century.

‘Animals in Motion: An Electro-Photographic Investigation Of Consecutive Phases Of Animal Progressive Movements,’ Eadweard Muybridge, Chapman and Hall, London, 1899, published in 1902.

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Lanterne Chinoise, 1880 model with pagoda-style motif, sold with twelve glass hand-painted slides. The roofs are blue and made of tin that was coated with a crimson alcohol varnish, now highly faded.

It came in four different sizes: 9, 10, 12, and 14 inches.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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Lapierre’s pre cinema Magic Lanterns were accompanied by mass-produced slides that were reproduced in outline, and then hand-coloured like stained glass.

Pictured: the Lanterne Salon, 1880.

^{Images de Luikerwaal}

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BREAKING NEWS!
A report from the University of Pennsylvania, states that photographer and cinematography pioneer Eadweard Muybridge has taken a series of photographs proving that no matter how hard we try, men can’t fly.

Thanks to the development of the Graphics Interchange file Format in the late 1980s, and the WWW in the early 1990s, this kind of animated Muybridge series of photographs can be seen by all across the world in the manner in which Muybridge wanted it to be seen. What a discovery.

c.1880
SHADOW CARDS
Shadow Plays or Shades were a very early form of motion entertainment. Shadowful illusions were repeated many times throughout Chinese culture and all of Asia and came in all shapes and sizes. Shades were also found in Turkey and Greece. Some of these examples are seen here.

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Shadow Cards were born out of Shadow Plays forming a simple element within pre cinema. Here are three wonderful Shadow Cards of Au bon Marché, France. A complete series c.1880 contained nine cards.

^{Image de Luikerwaal}

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Shadow Cards are often mistaken for Trading Cards. Shadow Cards are not associated in any way with Tarot cards.

True Shadow Cards have a distinct relationship with the Magic Lantern. They will always have a Shadow Puppet displayed in the card, and usually by children.

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Shadow Cards have a distinct relationship with the ancient Shadow Plays of the Orient, forming a simple element within pre cinema

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Shadow Cards have made their way into many forms of art, leisure, playful entertainment for children, advertisements for meat products and as we see below, a way to commemorate a former monastery location.

They have occasionally been mistaken for hand warmers, but their metal construction makes them unsuitable for that purpose due to heat conduction. The Science Museum Group Collection highlights their cultural significance in the Far East, particularly in China, as ‘early shadow-casting devices.’

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Chinese Shadow Balls are fascinating 19^th century Chinese artifacts that represent a unique blend of craftsmanship, cultural storytelling, and early optical technology. They emerged during the 19th century in China, particularly during the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), a period marked by significant cultural and artistic creativity despite political and social upheavals.

These brass spheres, intricately engraved with patterns such as birds, plants, and other motifs, were designed to house a gimballed oil lamp. The gimbal mechanism ensured the lamp remained upright as the ball was rolled or rotated, casting delicate, filigree-like shadows onto the walls of a darkened room.

This made them a form of early shadow projection, aligning them with the broader tradition of Chinese shadow play, which dates back to the Han dynasty (206 BC–220 AD).

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They are considered part of the pre history of photography and film, as they manipulated light and shadow to create dynamic visual narratives, much like shadow puppetry.

The intricate engravings and the mechanical ingenuity of the gimbal reflect the advanced metalworking and artistic skills of 19^th century Chinese artisans, particularly from regions like Guangzhou, known for export crafts.

Several openings allow the light to shine outward and cast shadows from a flame which is housed inside. A gimballed centrepiece holds a wick which when lit, allows the flame to remain upright even when turned or spun.

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While shadow balls are distinctly associated with 19^th century Qing China, their conceptual roots may trace back to earlier Chinese traditions of shadow play and lantern-making.

Shadow puppetry, for instance, is documented as early as the Han dynasty, with a famous story from historian Sima Qian describing a Taoist monk (Shao Ong whom I have spoken about) using shadow figures to console Emperor Wu over a concubine’s death.

This suggests a long-standing cultural fascination with light and shadow manipulation, which likely influenced the development of shadow balls centuries later. The ball has two equal pieces which are hinged together.

As the ball rolls, it casts shadows across the wall of a darkened room. Illuminated and projected motion entertainment.

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Chinese Shadow Balls hold significant cultural value as artifacts that bridge art, technology, and storytelling. They were not merely decorative but served as tools for creating immersive visual experiences, akin to early forms of theatre or cinema.

The shadows they cast—often intricate patterns of flora and fauna—evoked the aesthetic sensibilities of Chinese art, which valued harmony, nature, and symbolic imagery. These objects were likely used in private settings, possibly among the elite or in ceremonial contexts, to create an atmosphere of wonder and narrative engagement.

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these brass Chinese Shadow Balls bring into play the cave art of antiquity, Plato’s shadows in The Republic, as well as Shadow Puppets

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Shadow balls represented Chinese ingenuity and aesthetic refinement, contributing to the broader narrative of cultural exchange along trade routes like the Silk Road. However, their production and export also tied into the controversial ivory trade, as some related artifacts (though not shadow balls themselves) used ivory, reflecting the complex interplay of art and ethics in global commerce.

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Pictured are two examples of a gimbal stabilizer for a DSLR camera (still or motion) and a smart phone.

In the context of Chinese shadow puppetry, shadow balls share a symbolic role. Shadow plays were a medium for imparting moral values, historical narratives, and social commentary, often incorporating themes from texts like The Romance of the Three Kingdoms or The Water Margin.

Shadow balls, with their ability to project dynamic images, likely served a similar purpose, albeit on a smaller, more intimate scale, reinforcing their place in China’s rich tradition of visual storytelling.

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The craftsmanship required to create these objects intricate brass engraving, precise gimbal construction, and balanced design, suggests they were developed by skilled metalworkers and artisans, likely in workshops in regions like Guangzhou, a hub for export crafts during the Qing dynasty.

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A DISTINCTIVE DIFFERENCE
The walls and ceiling dance with light and shadows. These balls fit in nicely with pre cinema history and the desire to see movement and motion through illumination while being entertained. Shadow Balls are distinct from Chinese puzzle balls, which are often confused due to their shared 19th century context and intricate craftsmanship.

Top left our Chinese Shadow Ball, and three examples of Puzzle Balls.

Puzzle balls, made primarily of ivory, consist of nested, concentric spheres carved from a single piece, with the earliest references dating to the Song dynasty (960–1279 CE) in Cao Zhao’s 1388 Gegu Yaolun. Unlike shadow balls, puzzle balls were purely decorative and not designed for light projection.

However, both objects reflect the high skill of Chinese artisans and their appeal to European collectors as symbols of exotic craftsmanship.

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This motion-mimicking device is a primitive attempt at moving entertainment and the capturing of, or more so the letting go of shadows. Baoding balls, another Chinese artifact, are also distinct, used for hand exercises and meditation rather than shadow projection.

On the left a Shadow Ball and on the right two Baoding Balls.

Their history traces back to the Han dynasty, with hollow versions emerging in the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). The shared use of spherical forms in these artifacts highlights a Chinese fascination with geometric precision and functional art, but shadow balls are unique in their optical purpose.

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While shadow puppetry has seen a revival, partly due to its 2011 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage designation, shadow balls are less documented in modern contexts, likely due to their niche use and the decline of oil-lamp technology.

Today, they are primarily museum pieces, valued for their historical and artistic significance.

The Chinese film Dragon Master-Dragon Hunting Squad (2020) honours their optical history of learning and studying physics, by depicting at the 5 minute and 35 second mark, a Shadow Ball. And like most Chinese historical fantasy films, it also offers other optical wonders.
WATCH the film here.

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On the back of the card, it described and explained how to make one of these very primitive optical toys of your own. Kids, don’t burn the house down.

19^TH CENTURY
MECHANICAL MAGIC LANTERN SLIDES
Mechanical Magic Lantern slides were a simple motion entertainment toy enjoyed by adults and children. All slides shown are from the Virtueel toverlantaarnmuseun de Luikerwaal and my friend Henc de Roo.

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c. 1880
MAGIC LANTERN IN CONFERENCE
As the Magic Lantern matured over the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, we learn how this projection device used to be used to “amuse children with the projection of wretched caricatures and grotesque figures.”

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His early experiments aimed to develop a photographic medium that was lighter and more flexible than glass.

In 1883, he moved his offices to a larger building at 343 State Street seen on the left, still the headquarters of this multinational corporation today. Right, the Kodak Tower today.

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Eastman film was “as transparent as glass and flexible enough to make in a roll”

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In 1889 came the invention of flexible film. After three years of research, with the help of Kodak superstar chemist Henry Reichenbach, George Eastman finalised photographic film, composed of celluloid–sensitized by a silver emulsion.

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Here is some interesting information about the Eastman-Walker patents, and the man who granted them.

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Eastman film was “as transparent as glass and flexible enough to make in a roll.”

This film, cut into 35mm strips, enabled Thomas Edison to develop in 1891, the Kinetograph, a camera capable of instantly recording several successive photographs on this photographic film.

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By 1896 Eastman Kodak had manufactured more than 100,000 cameras and over 43 miles of film.

On the left is the Kodak logo of 1907. On the right, the original Kodak logo from 1888. Hyatt lived to experience the silent era.

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Pictured here on the left ca. 1880 is the Grand Amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, in Paris where Alfred Molteni and Stanislas-Étienne Meunier hosted their consummate demonstration of the Projection Lantern for teaching purposes.

On the right is a more recent photograph of the interior.

1880s
MAGIC LANTERN IN A CANE
The top of this walking stick contains a miniature working Magic Lantern. This cane slides up and acts as a portable projector. Point it at the nearest wall to view the hand-painted illustrations housed within the shaft.

A tiny battery-operated light brings the full-colour slideshow to life.

A miniature movie theatre in your walking stick.

1880
Here is a beautiful old John Wrench Magic Lantern made in England ca. 1880. It’s an original lantern from one hundred and forty-four years ago.

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On the flip cover that protects the lens we can see engraved the manufacturer’s logo, John Wrench. The company was a commanding producer of glass plates for these types of devices.

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The John Wrench Company also manufactured a complete line of accessories and equipment for lanternists. The lantern that we see in these images consist of a body made of black sheet metal.

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In the body of this Wrench projecting lantern the burner or lamp holders are inserted, providing the necessary light to project the images.

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This wonderful old John Wrench Magic Lantern is a period original and measures 16.14 inches x 8.27 inches.

1880
THE KAISERPANORAMA
AUGUST FUHRMANN (1844–1925)
The Kaiserpanorama was a respectably large as you can see, stereoscopic mechanical apparatus for the public display of stereo photographs. It was designed, manufactured and patented by physicist August Fuhrmann.

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the Kaiserpanorama was a reasonably huge Stereoscopic mechanical device for the public exhibition of stereo photographs

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As many as twenty-five patrons could be seated around the device and each had a seat with a Stereoscopic view into the apparatus. Viewers sat around this 10–15-foot diametre wooden cylinder, which was mounted with what was called a Holmes style stereoscope viewport.

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Prismatic lenses allowed the viewer to see up to 50 tinted glass slides. The slides were illuminated from behind by a lamp. Fuhrmann opened his first show in Breslau in 1880, and in three years had his first commercial Kaiserpanorama in a Berlin arcade.

Schematic below.

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On the left is the magnificent Kaiserpanorama at Schindler’s Factory in Kraków Poland and on our right is the beautiful Kaiserpanorama housed within the History of Cinema Museum, Dubai.

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The Kaiserpanorama was a reasonably huge Stereoscopic mechanical device for the public exhibition of stereo photographs.

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Beautifully preserved Praxinoscope Théâtres in the Michael Rogge Collection. These are all from the years 1877 and 1879.

^{Images the Michael Rogge Collection}

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Left: A Reynaud Praxinoscope powered by a hot air motor.

Right: An authenticated Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck hot air Praxinoscope. A small boiler works to activate the pulleys.

^{Both images the Antiq Photos Collection}

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From the book Le Siècle du Cinema by Vincent Pinel, published by Bordas, Paris, 1994 he shows us an illustration of a spool of film for the Théâtre Optique on page 47.

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Right: Reynaud Projection Praxinoscope illustration from the French publication La Nature, 1882.

Left: Also called the Praxinoscope Projector in English, by Émile Reynaud housed in the Museums of Catalonia -Tomàs Mallol Collection.

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SEE the Émile Reynaud Projection Praxinoscope here thanks to Museu del Cinema in Girona Spain. Runs 1:24

1880-1890s
MAGIC LANTERN PICTURE POSTCARDS
There was a time when picture-postcards with Magic Lantern themes were one way of communicating. A beautiful way to get your message across. Here are some examples. My thanks to Henc R. A. de Roo at Virtueel Toverlantaarnmuseun de Luikerwaal.

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Here are some more beautiful examples of Magic Lantern postcards that were sent c. 1890. Little children (especially girls) and cherubs/cupids were frequent themes.

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Here on the left is a French Rotogravure Magic Lantern Postcard circa 1880, printed for New Years. On the right another postcard from the same series. Same wee lass minus mom, same Magic Lantern, same easel, same text.

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Originally a coffee house and cabaret, Salis laid the groundwork for the revival of the Ombres Chinoises which Dominique Séraphin had brought to Paris in 1772 when he opened a theatre at the back of an inn, in the Lannion Garden of Versailles at the age of twenty-three.

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In 1885, illustrator Henry Sommier and painter Georges Auriol erected a puppet theatre for adult performances at Chat Noir’s original location. Something arts and culture writer Natalia Hedges refers to as the “adult glove puppet play.” Performances included La Marche à l’Etoile.

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1885
ENTER HENRI RIVIÈRE (1864-1951)
Rivière was one of the intelligentsia. His first shadow figures were made with cardboard, and later zinc. These Guignol rubber-glove puppets as they were known (created by Laurent Mourguet in 1808) were popular with the highbrows who frequented the Black Cat.

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The second and larger venue of the Chat Noir was built in 1887. Its stage was twelve feet across and six feet deep. Compared to the first establishment, it was enormous. Rivière was in heaven. Over the next ten years, Shadow Plays were presented nightly with elaborate staging.

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_{Images Shigekin}

Under Rivière’s direction, the Black Cat Shadow Theatre developed to proto-cinematic heights, completely engrossing the audience in a Kaleidoscope of colour, music, and especially movement.

Pictured are several behind-the-scenes photographs of the Shadow Theatre in production.

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Henri Rivièrie was the mastermind behind the Shadow Theatre. He entered the assembly at Le Chat Noir in 1882, when he was only 18. His exquisite illustrations and lithographs were the foundation of the Chat Noir 2D characters. Caricature of Rivièrie by French artist Charles Leandre.

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The second Shadow Theatre, established in 1887 by Henri Rivièrie and Henry Somm on the third floor of the Chat Noir’s new venue, quickly became the business’s most popular attraction.

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Rivière designed a clever system of zinc silhouette cutouts organised in a wooden framework behind the screen by the time it premiered in 1887. The light source was mostly an oxyhydrogen flame located in the very back of the structure although an open flame was sometimes used.

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The Shadow Theatre was the Cabaret’s most notable attraction, lasting nearly a decade until its closure in 1897.

However, it never lasted as long as Séraphin’s Ombres Chinoises.

Here from The Museum of Precinema in Padua (Founded by Laura Minici Zotti), a unique donation;

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Realising that he (and other artists I’m sure) had misrepresented a horse’s gallop visually, he is reported to have emotionally stated; “How! All these years my eyes have deceived me?”

Stanford’s response; “The machine cannot lie.”

Meissonier therefore determined to rework as one example, his well-known 1807, Friedland, painted between 1861 and 1875.

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The Horse in Motion visually dissected the equine gallop, pioneering what we call motion capture today, and jettisoning cinematography into the world. Muybridge’s images, with their sequential exposure, provided a new visual understanding of dynamic movement, serving as science for scientists and art for artists.

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Muybridge’s Horse in Motion visually dissected the equine gallop

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Meissonier then parlayed those sketches into something closer to a finished work. Notice how the horses look in the before and after images. Meissonier’s future work in both canvas and bronze will reflect how Sallie Gardner appeared in 1878.

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When Meissonier painted former Governor of California Leland Stanford in 1881 below, it is known that Meissonier placed under his left hand, a copy of Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion published in 1878.

1881
DAVID (1841-1906) PETER (1834-1914) HOUSTON
The Houston’s immigrated to America in 1841 from Glasgow and while farming, invented and filed their first patent in 1881 for a camera that used a roll of film — something which hadn’t even been invented yet.

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Enter George Eastman. The Houston’s invented the roll-film camera mechanism and later sold the rights to Eastman Kodak. Eastman also bought the patent rights to 21 other inventions related to photographic cameras issued to David and Peter Houston.

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1881
EADWEARD JAMES MUYBRIDGE (1830-1904)
ETIENNE-JULES MAREY (1830-1904)
These men unite in Paris to begin collaborating in the study of motion. Muybridge had by now, constructed a series of pictures depicting motion by the use of a single camera.

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The Zoopraxiscope was originally called the Zoogyroscope. The black and white photograph is the aforementioned Zoogyroscope from a rare photo-write up from 1880.

Two other Zoopraxiscopes as well. They’re all the same device.

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Alongside Marey, Muybridge showed photographs using a Uchatius lantern in Paris and could possibly have acquired picture-motion this way. One such instance was a write-up from Cassiers Magazine a year later in 1881, in which we read;

Below I’ve blown up the lower portion of the photo-write up from Cassiers in 1880, to see Muybridge’s projector the write called a Zoogyroscope. This quickly changed and the Muybridge projector has since been called the Zoopraxiscope.

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The Théâtrophone makes its big appearance in the magazines La Nature and Scientific American on the topic of early radio transmission, with the popular introduction of the device explained in this article at the Scientific American for 2 July, 1892.

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the Théâtrophone saved King Luís I of Portugal from having to walk across the street to the Opera House

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In the history of thought transmission, answers were coming together quickly in cinema, radio or even television which was in its conception stage.

The Théâtrophone was an astonishing next-step in the development of a new medium.

It was an astonishing next-step in the development of a new medium. The theatre installed multiple carbon microphones along the stage front. Signals were sent over dedicated telephone lines. Listeners used a special two-ear earpiece—essentially early stereo. You paid per minute or had a subscription; coin-operated kiosks existed in Parisian cafés and hotels.

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Marconi’s patent would be issued four years later in 1896, however back in 1881, the Théâtrophone offered a glimpse into the near-future, allowing people to listen to live entertainment, remotely.

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This is an illustration ca. 1881-84 of the Théâtrophone hook up at an Opera House, ready for transmission.

The many devices can be seen along the foot of the stage ready to broadcast the music.

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Pictured are a photograph and an illustration each depicting the central switchboard for the Théâtrophone with the operators making connections with listeners.

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Here is an illustration from 1882 of patrons of the Théâtrophone listening to their favourite music at a ladies gathering.

Right, the inner workings of the Théâtrophone.

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Left, an 1884 caricature by Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro portraying King Luís I of Portugal listening to opera on the Théâtrophone. Right, an 1896 lithograph from the Les Maitre de L’Affiches series by Jules Chéret.

It saved him walking across the street to the Opera House.

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This advertisement explains “We put two ear covers that correspond with the wall, and we hear the representation of the Opera, we change ear covers and we hear the Théâtre-Français, Coquelin, etc. We change again and we hear the Opéra-Comique. The children were charmed and so were I.”

1881
NICOLAS POWER (1854-1921)
Power was born in New York of Scottish parents and for unknown reasons began his working career with Magic Lanterns at the age of 11. By the age of 13 he was apprenticed and on his way to building the Automatic Stereopticon.

_{Image Soterios Gardiakos}

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AUTOMATIC STEREOPTICON
This Stereopticon consisted of a clock movement that held a disk with twelve different pictures on it. Other sources say it held 16. The images on the disc were moved by the clock’s striking position.

If the images were sequenced in an attempt to show motion, is unknown.

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REFLECTOSCOPE
In 1882, Power introduced his first motion picture invention, the Reflectoscope, a second automatic Magic Lantern that was an improvement on the previously mentioned Automatic Stereopticon.

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PEERLESS SCOPE / CAMERAGRAPH
In 1898 Power collaborated with Siegmund Lubin for a short period before opening a projector repair shop in Manhattan. He builds his first projector here called the Peerless Scope. By 1902 it was renamed the Cameragraph.

_{Images Soterios Gardiakos}

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The No. 6 Cameragraph by Nicolas Power, on the left.

The 6B on the right with supply and take-up reels and lamphouse. Image Smithsonian.

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Nicolas Power was a projectionist at Koster and Bial’s Music Hall in New York during 1896 and 1897. It’s unclear if he was relieved of his duties, or left on his own, after dismantling a projector not of his own making, and then couldn’t put it back together in time for a presentation.

One of my sources say Power was born in 1864. All others say he was born in 1854.

1882
THE ANARITHMOSCOPE
The earliest I have seen the Anarithmoscope listed is in the Oxford English Dictionary for a presentation it was documented as having made at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill in 1882 according to the Palace’s Official Catalogue for that period.

Like a now-extinct animal, it was last seen to project “animated photographs” in various assembly rooms in 1897 where it would seem to have displayed a series of images shown in rapid succession to create the illusion of motion.

Beyond this, no other information, and no records seem to exist on the designer or owner. Perhaps it was taken out with the dinosaurs as asteroids rained down. RIP Anarithmoscope.

1882
ANOTHER GUN CAMERA
BENJAMIN WEST KILBURN (1827-1909)
Camera design has changed significantly even before photography and cinematic history arrived. Some changes came through experimentation. Some through necessity.

Kilburn was an American photographer and stereoscopic view publisher, renowned for his landscape photography and documentation of significant historical events in the late 19th century. Born in Littleton, New Hampshire, he was a seventh-generation New Englander with a passion for the outdoors, including hunting and mountain climbing, which influenced his career in capturing New England scenery.

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Kilburn initially worked in his father’s foundry and machine shop alongside his younger brother, Edward Kilburn. In the early 1860s, both brothers transitioned to photography, and in 1865, they founded the Kilburn Brothers stereophotographic publishing company in Littleton.

A New Hampshire resident of the White Mountains, Kilburn’s Gun Camera was designed to facilitate the taking of 4 x 5 pictures where it was extremely difficult to erect a tripod on mountainous terrain.

_{Scoville image Historic Camera}

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Their business became one of the world’s leading producers of stereoscopic views, averaging 3,000 stereographs daily, sold for $2.00 to $2.50 per dozen. The Camera was designed in 1883 under Patent Nº 286447 (pictured) granted 9 October.

It was assigned to the Scovill Manufacturing Company of Waterbury, Connecticut. The sliding-bolt design was patented by Mathias Flammang, Patent Nº 328664, on 20 October, 1885.

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Surviving examples of the Kilburn Gun Camera have been found stamped American Optical Company, or Scovill Manufacturing Company.

Advertisements for the camera have been found as early as 1883 in Scoville’s The Photographic Amateur.

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Kilburn’s Gun Camera was designed for the outdoor photographer who had to deal with heavy equipment and difficult terrain.

By combining a lightweight 4 x 5 camera with a specially fitted gunstock and trigger-release linkage, Kilburn was able to do away with the tripod.

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The camera was constructed of mahogany or cherry, a black fabric bellows and brass hardware. Available in 4 x 5 size only.

Shutter speed was 1/ 700th of a second. Priced in 1883 at $27 for the outfit and an additional $5 for the gun-stock. Photographs of the Kilburn Gun Camera the National Museum of American History.

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On 25 November 1894 Ottomar publicly showed life-size moving images on a 6 x 8 metre screen in the post office lecture hall at 12pm and in the afternoon to members of the Photographic Association. This lasted until 30 November.

Three frames from leap-frogging men pictured here.

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Still, on 22 February 1895 in the 300-seat hall of the old Reichstag building at Leipziger Strasse 4, Anschütz showed 40 series of moving pictures including; two carpenters eating; skat players; and a barber soaping his customer just to name three. The Anschütz Tachyscope pictured.

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With 5,400 tickets sold in March alone, the math dictates 4000 cinema-goers saw his motion pictures that month. After the Berlin performances, Anschütz set up in Carl Heckel’s Concert Hall at Grossen Bleichen 32 in Hamburg.

And on and on went the moving picture presentations.

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In 1898 flying man Otto Lilienthal wrote on page 148 in his book Der Vogelflug als Grundlage der Fliegekunst (Birdflight as the Basis of Aviation).

Which “art” was he talking about?

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Pictured are three of the pictures from Van Hoevenbergh’s first 1882 patent for a Flip Book. Figures 5, 6 and 7 as Deac Rossell claims, are “pre-figuring a major image of early cinema.” Born in Oswego, NY, Van Hoevenbergh was a self-taught electrical engineer and telegraphic inventor. He worked as chief electrician for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and even supervised the installation of the national telegraphic system in Great Britain.

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The patent stated “My improvement consists in the employment of a series of thin leaves of paper or other like material, and in placing upon each successive leaf a pictorial representation of some natural or artificial object, which object is repeated upon each successive leaf, but in a slightly different position. The superposed leaves… are secured together at one of their edges bookwise, so that by holding the book thus formed by its clamped edge or back in the left hand, and bending it downward with the right hand, and then allowing the separate leaves… to slip successively and rapidly from beneath the thumb… and to regain their normal position by virtue of their inherent resiliency, the pictorial representation… will appear to the eye to be in motion.”

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There can be no doubt as we read in the patent description below that the apparatus is indeed a Flip Book.

Van Hoevenbergh’s exact use of the word “bookwise” confirms it. He was likely avoiding an infringement by not using the phrase Flip Book.

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On 20 June 1882 Hoevenbergh is granted a 2^nd patent Nº 259950 which contains more images and a clear indication we are dealing with a Flip Book, although he remains with the use of the generic term Optical Toy.

1882
REANIMATING STILL PHOTOGRAPHS
In 2003 Bill Sheehan and Anthony Misch discovered 147 wet-plate glass negatives taken by David Peck Todd back on 6 December 1882, of the transit of Venus across the Sun.

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Two illustrations almost identical, 37 years apart. They show a desk, or portable Camera Obscura for artistic use.

Left: from Ellsworth Foster and James L. Hughes, in The American Educator…. 1919.

Right: from Adolphe Ganot, in An Elementary Treatise on Physics, 1882

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Londe designed and built a camera which had nine lenses seen on the left. The shutters were tripped by electro-magnetic energy (a battery) and the use of a metronome (also left) to time the release of the shutters.

This camera took in rapid succession, photographs on a glass plate.

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1882
ROBERT R. BEARD (1856-1932)
Beard worked with a maker of Magic Lanterns and began to learn the craft. Lanternists relied heavily on oxygen tanks to provide fuel for illumination and Beard came up with a regulator that was automated for use with the cylinders.

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Here from Modern Magic Lanterns- A Guide to The Management of The Optical Lantern by R. Child Bayley, (L. Upcott Gill, London, Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, 1900) we read about the Beard regulator on pp27 and 32.

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ECLIPSE SLIDE CARRIER FOR MAGIC LANTERNS
R. R. Beard Ltd. came into existence in 1882 to manufacture the regulators. He also invented the Eclipse Slide Carrier which allowed ease-of-use when exchanging lantern slides. Beard later became Photon Beard and is still in business today.

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From p23, and fig. 6, of Optic Projection by Simon Henry Gage and Henry Phelps Gage, 1914 we read about the “push-through” slide carrier. Notice the upside-down Walgensten Magic Lantern the Gage’s used for their illustration.

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Bayley also comments on the Beard ‘Eclipse Slide Carrier’ on pp 57, 58, 59 of Modern Magic Lanterns- A Guide to The Management of The Optical Lantern (R. Child Bayley, L. Upcott Gill, London, Charles Scribner’s and Sons, New York, 1900).

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Below, four lanterns equipped with the Beard Eclipse Slide Carrier clearly shown from different angles.

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Here’s a reference to the Beard Eclipse Dissolving Carrier taken from The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual by Expert, Published by E. A. Beckett, London, 1893, pp95, 96, 97.

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Produced by Museu del Cinema, watch this beautiful 1:45 video of a Thomas Ross Wheel of Life Lantern Slide patented in 1869. At the :45 second mark you will see the Robert Royou Beard Eclipse Slide Carrier being removed from the lantern.

1882
CLAUDE ANTOINE LUMIÈRE (1840-1911)
The Lumière’s were astute and prolific scientists. They introduced landmark inventions in the field of photography and Antoine, father of the more famous brothers, founded Lumière and Sons and made photographic gelatin dry plates in Lyons.

On the left is the Lumiere brothers monument in Yekaterinburg, Russia. The installation of the monument was timed to coincide with several dates:

🎞️ Yekaterinburg City Day
🎞️ Russian Cinema Day
🎞️ the 150th anniversary of the birth of Auguste Lumiere
🎞️ and the 45th anniversary of the opening of the Cosmos Cinema Theatre, which commissioned the monument

The designer of the monument was Diana Kosygina who took second prize in a competition. It was opened in 2012.

On the right is the Lumière factory in Lyons.

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The Lumière’s second major invention was an early commercially successful celluloid-film Motion Picture camera-printer-projector built by Jules Carpentier.

^{Images The Malkames Collection}

It was known as the Cinématographe, with its working parts based mostly on the designs from acquired patents of other inventors around the world.

^{Images The Malkames Collection}

The Lumières however, were not the first public showing of Cinema, paid or otherwise in the world. Many lay claim to that; however, it was only the first public showing of Cinema in France.

^{Images The Malkames Collection}

Pictured are various angled images of the 1895 Lumière Cinématographe.

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1882 
ETIENNE-JULES MAREY (1830 – 1904)

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this was soon to be known as panning, which quickly caught on and in the early twentieth century became a staple of filmmaking

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He created several methods of obtaining time and motion recordings by means of mechanical or pneumatic devices attached directly to the subject, which activated a pen resting on a band of moving paper.

Marey’s meeting with Muybridge in 1881 convinced him of the value of photography for his work. He went on to invent a number of repeating-shutter cameras most of which recorded a series of images on a single plate, allowing a flow of the movements to be analyzed.

This animation on the right was called by Marey, “Flight of the birds according to the instantaneous photographs of Mr. Marey,” and was taken with the Fusil Photographique.

His various devices and inventions were the foundation of a number of motion pictures, slow motion and high-speed cameras and projectors developed, and commercially exploited by others.

His sequence pictures were at least as valuable and influential, as those of Muybridge in establishing the modern techniques of physiological movement analysis.

His preference to follow the movement of birds from one perspective (as opposed to the Muybridge method of twenty-four [albeit slightly] perspectives), led to the  Fusil Photographique or photographic  rifle.

Through this method Marey was now capable of moving with the bird in air, as in panning. Each phase of movement was exposed on one gelatin plate in the camera.

Marey actually found the smaller the creature, the better the response. Larger subjects like people and horses tended to be over-lapped on the plate due to the shorter intervals between exposures.

However this difficulty was overcome in human forms by the black suit/striped appendages.

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The very end of the barrel could be moved in or out thereby providing focus. At the bottom of the end of the barrel, housed the magazine containing the gelatin plate. In front of the plate was another disk, opaque, with twelve shutters, and in front of that disk, one more opaque disk with only one opening.

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The rifle’s portability allowed a new form of perspective to be captured while keeping the subject within the frame.

This was soon to be known as panning, which quickly caught on and in the early twentieth century became a staple of filmmaking.

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through this method Marey was now capable of moving with the bird in air, as in panning

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Although Le Prince, the Lumières, Edison and Méliès shot their original experimental films with stationary cameras, Marey’s rifle allowed motion from both camera and subject, thereby enhancing this sense of movement.

Panning would be incorporated into cinematography very soon. By 1877 the increased speed of photographic emulsions and faster shutter speeds made it possible to photograph motion at 12 fps which the Fusil Photographique did.

1882 
EADWEARD JAMES MUYBRIDGE (1830 – 1904)
Muybridge states with all enthusiasm regarding horse races, that “no race of any importance will be undertaken without the assistance of photography to determine the winner . . . . . In an important race the decision of the camera would be preferred to that of the judges.”  

Six years later it came true.

Ernest Marks, official photographer for the Plainfield Racing Association in New Jersey, provided positive photographs within minutes of the finish.

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Prior to the arrival’ of photography, a placing judge who stood at the finish line had the final word on which horse had won.

Cine pioneer Eadweard Muybridge had the vision to believe that horse racing could rely on modern technology for accurate outcomes.

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This is the first Focal Plane shutter camera, by C. P. Goerz and Ottomar Anschutz. Spring powered, speeds from 5 seconds – 1/1200. Speeds down to 1/10 are regulated by varying the slit width and tension.

The lens is f 6.8, a 180 mm Doppel Anastigmat, series 3/2. It has an Iris diaphragm to f 64. The Serial Number on this particular Goerz/Anschutz Focal Plane shutter camera is Nº 91578.

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The Goerz/Anschutz Focal Plane Tropical model pictured here, was produced for difficult climates. Russia leather was used and for the bellows, brass and nickel was used in preference to steel where possible. The shutter springs were nickel-plated.

The lens was f 6.8, a 168 mm Doppel Anastigmat Dagor. Iris diaphragm to f 64. Serial Nº 364207.

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Anschutz takes photographs of marching troops, gymnasts and jumping horses. His photos reached fame because of their brilliant clarity and sharpness of detail. The redesigned camera became known as the Goerz/Anschutz camera.

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The camera was very popular among amateurs and started a line of variations up to the 1900s. By 1888 35K were sold and by 1898 90K. The camera was constructed of polished mahogany and leather bellows.

William J. Lancaster below, and four variations of the Instantograph Camera.

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Below, another photograph taken by Jennings the moment lightning struck.

This one is from North Dakota in 1887.

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1883
FROM THE PHOTOMATON TO THE SELFIE
The Photomaton, known by a myriad of other names like picture booth, photo box, or photo cabinet, has evolved into an indispensable tool under the sub genre of candid photography. Today, these 150+ year-old machines can still be found largely at malls, but more importantly, right in your pocket. They’re called smartphones, and they take what we call selfies.

Percival Everett is believed to have made the first selfie machine in 1883 but I’ll be darned if I can find any imagery. It was coin operated, and many of these early contraptions prepared Ferrotype / Tintypes.

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1889
THE SWISS-PATTERN PHOTOMATON
THÉOPHILE-ERNEST ENJALBERT
What is identified as the world’s best earliest Photo Booth or Photomaton, is seen at the Exposition Universelle of 1889, better known as the 1889 Paris Exposition, a world’s fair held in Paris, France, from 6 May to 31 October 1889.

Not only could patrons see the new Eiffel Tower, but instead of attending a Photographic Salon to get their picture taken, they could now sit privately for five minutes and get what was quickly called the “automatic camera.”

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The machine was described in Enjalbert’s patent application as “Apparatus for receiving coin and for producing and delivering photographs in exchange therefor.” Many other pioneers contributed their versions of the Photomaton, aiding in the better construction by the time the 20^th century arrived such as the Muscovite Anatolу Markovich Yozefovich and the German-born Chicago-based photographer Mathew Steffens, in 1889.

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THE BOSCO PHOTOMATON
In 1890, a German named Conrad Bernitt duplicated Enjalbert’s invention and submitted a patent for a similar device. In 1893, he showed his Bosco Photomaton at the first International Amateur Photo Exhibition in Hamburg.

The patron could receive his portrait upon introducing a 10-cent coin and waiting a few minutes. The Bosco Photomaton, hailed as an ‘attraction,’ more so than a service-providing apparatus, frequently appeared in amusement parks and fairgrounds.

The bronze and gold coloured cards would be on the back of the photograph as advertisements.

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The Photoautographe, a semi-automated device created by Barcelona native Juan Ferrer Y Girbau, was depicted and discussed by La Nature in 1895. Almost unknown outside of Spain, this watchmaker was a recognized professional in his field. Especially interesting was his ability to combine fine mechanics and photography in the same cabinet.

Pictured is the Ferrer Photoautographe and patent.

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we are still drawing pictures based on what the cave dweller saw several thousand years ago

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1883
SUBSCRIPTION MAGIC LANTERNS
LADIES HOME JOURNAL
The Ladies Home Journal created in 1883 started offering readers a Magic Lantern, and their sons a job acquiring the six subscribers necessary.

Each lantern came with six plaques, entrance tickets and a reading sheet.

As The Ladies Home Journal cited in their advertisements;

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It was possible to purchase a wide variety of other slides at 10¢ each, such as “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Robinson Crusoe,” as well as colourful and animated views such as Kaleidoscopes or Chromatropes.

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Here is one of the advertisements for a Magic Lantern with accessories, found in The Ladies Home Journal, Volume II Nº 1 of the December issue in 1884, p11.

Also, an illustration showing how a boy salesman would look during the sales pitch.

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READ The Ladies Home Journal, Volume II Nº 1 of December in 1884 here at Internet Archive.

Their uncle, Townsend Duryea, a pioneering Daguerreotypist, introduced them to photography in the early 1850s. After Duryea left for Australia, the brothers took over the family studio and spent eight years travelling and working in the West Indies, Venezuela, and Cuba.

The Pearsall Compact Camera was a radical departure from previous camera design–the 1st camera that could fully fold into its own protective case. All precious parts were completely enclosed.

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Returning to New York, Pearsall honed his skills under photographer Jeremiah Gurney in 1862 whom I have talked about, and later worked with James L. Forbes, who became his business assistant.

In 1870, he established a photographic gallery in Brooklyn at Fulton and Tillary Streets. Pearsall’s compact camera design and blueprint would be used by George Eastman in 1890, and be embraced by all major manufacturers of refined self-casing cameras produced through the mid 19th century.

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Pearsall was an innovator, patenting the Pearsall Compact Camera in 1883, a portable, self-contained device that influenced modern folding cameras. His work with sports photography, particularly portraits of baseball and cricket players for Henry Chadwick, likely drove this invention.

In 1879, he revived the Daguerreotype process, and by 1880, his Brooklyn studio was advertised as the largest in the area. He also introduced the Knarfograph portrait style and endorsed innovations like the Gray’s Extreme-angle Periscope Lens.

Below is the patent illustration of Pearsall’s Compact Self-Casing Camera from 3 April, 1883. Patent Nº 275073. Advertised as “embodying every improvement of the best instruments with several novel features of great value, such as the . . . ” Roller Focusing Screen, Bellow’s Focusing Hood, Back, Forward and Side Swing, Instantaneous Rifle Sight, Universal Focus Stop, and Vent tubing.

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These images of Pearsall’s Compact Self-Casing Camera from 1883 are from the Eastman Museum.

^{Images The Eastman Museum}

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1883
EDISON and MUYBRIDGE
The first of two known meetings between these two men (the second is in 1888) to consider the combining of Muybridge’s Zoopraxiscope and Edison’s Phonograph providing the initial steps needed to produce complete natural motion with sound.

1883
GIANT CAMERA OBSCURAS AROUND THE WORLD
This Giant Camera Obscura in Hainichen in Saxony was installed in 1883. At that time, the Camera Obscura was in a small wooden house.

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In 1985 the wooden-house camera was raised to the dome of a new 11-metre-high stone tower.

It is located today on what is known locally as the frame mountain.

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The lens system can be rotated 360° and there is a plane mirror whose angle of inclination is adjustable.

The Giant Camera Obscura in Hainichen Germany was included in the celebrations in 1985 when the 800th anniversary of Saxony took place.

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The Camera Obscura effect itself goes back a little further than 800 years; to the beginning of time having been observed by our first ancestors.

Robida was a French illustrator, etcher, lithographer, caricaturist, journalist, and novelist, born in Compiègne, France, on 14 May 1848, and died in Neuilly-sur-Seine on 11 October 1926. He is best known as a pioneer of science fiction and a visionary artist whose works anticipated modern technologies and societal changes with remarkable accuracy.

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Robida gives us streaming, television, video, cinema, texting and email all rolled into one including the cable news channels

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The son of a carpenter, Robida initially studied to become a notary but was drawn to art due to his passion for drawing, despite severe myopia. By 1865, at age 17, he created his first series of satirical cartoons.

In this novel, Robida describes his Cinema (illustration below), which may likely have been taken from a combination of contemporary and near-inventions of the day. Robida conveys the possibility of transmitting both sight and sound in real-time, anywhere and at anytime.

In 1867, his parents allowed him to move to Paris, where he began his career as an illustrator and caricaturist for popular magazines like La Chronique illustrée and Le Polichinelle. In 1866, he joined Journal amusant as an illustrator.

It appears that Robida saw the potential of Motion Pictures combined with sound, and told us about it before we saw it ourselves. He thought it would take until 1952.

Below is another of Robida’s illustrations from Le Vingtième Siècle.

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Robida is celebrated for his trilogy of futuristic novels written in the 1880s, which blended satire, adventure, and speculative technology. Robida was a visionary, artist, and writer.

In Le Vingtième Siècle he depicts the future of fluid motion combined with sound, through electric transmission, simultaneously and all in one instance twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. Just like now.

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Below, more cine-telecommunication illustrations by Robida from his Le Vingtième Siècle (The Twentieth Century) published in 1883. With the coming of cinema, many were now thinking in this direction—forward.

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Unlike Verne, Robida integrated inventions into everyday life, predicting social changes like women’s emancipation (envisioning women as voters, professionals, and trouser-wearers), mass tourism, and pollution.

His Téléphonoscope anticipated 24-hour news and streaming media. In seeing these illustrations, we can certainly see the concept of streaming. Either from earth or even the moon. Go into a booth and call your daughter.

From 2001: A Space Odyssey MGM (1968), the bush baby scene. The Heywood Floyd character played by William Sylvester and almost-eight-year-old Vivian Kubrick, daughter of the director.

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📔 Le Vingtième Siècle depicted life in the 1950s with inventions like the Téléphonoscope, a flat-screen device for news, entertainment, and teleconferences, foreshadowing modern television and video calls.

📔 La Guerre au Vingtième Siècle (1887, War in the Twentieth Century) envisioned modern warfare with robotic missiles, poison gas, and conflicts resembling World War II, including a German attack on London and Japan-U.S. tensions.

📔 Le Vingtième Siècle: La Vie Électrique (1890, The Electric Life) explored a world powered by electricity, with inventions integrated into daily life, contrasting with Jules Verne’s focus on extraordinary inventions by eccentric scientists.

1885 — Eastman introduced paper-based roll film for his Eastman-Walker roll holder, which could be fitted to existing plate cameras

1888 — The original Kodak camera also used this paper roll film (not yet celluloid)

1889 — Kodak shifted to transparent celluloid roll film, replacing the paper base

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This “stripping film” process was fussy, easily damaged, and never fully popular—which is why Eastman moved to celluloid roll film in 1889, eliminating the peel-off stage entirely. Pictured is a spool of exposed paper film.

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This was a major step in photographic history. The film was designed for use in Eastman’s early Kodak camera prototypes, and it predated the launch of the first Kodak camera (which used the film) in 1888. Pictured are the Walker / Edison patents № 317049 and № 317050 both for photographic roll-holder films issued 5 May 1885.

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FROM ROCHESTER US TO LEEDS UK
The film was used by Augustin Le Prince to photograph the Roundhay Garden, and Leeds Bridge films in October 1888, shown below. Just months away from the appearance of celluloid.

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In 1843 Austrian Joseph Puchberger patented a hand crank driven swing lens Panoramic Camera that used Daguerreotype plates 19 to 24 inches long.

The camera had an 8-inch focal length lens and had a 150° arc. The key word here is, plates. I have never found one yet.

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In 1884 Moëssard obtained a patent for a rotating-lens Panoramic camera. It covered a 170° field of view and was rotated by hand to expose the film.

Pictured is Moëssard’s Cylindrographe illustration from Le Cylindrographe Appareil Panoramique 1845, figure 9, p23.

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Here is a photograph of the Paris Opera Square in 1888 by Paul Moëssard using his Cylindrographe Panoramic Camera.

This photograph was not taken with a wide-angle lens as it wouldn’t have allowed adequate light. And it wasn’t the result of several plates.

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These are two detailed portions of the Panoramic photograph of the Paris Opera Square in 1888 by Paul Moëssard using his Cylindrographe.

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This new format of up to 23.62 inches long by 7.87 inches high enchanted everyone at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris.

On page 28, figure 14, Paul Moëssard provides diagrams and definitions of composition using his Cylindrographe.

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The Moëssard Cylindrographe aimed to create cohesive Panoramic photos that weren’t formed of a succession of plate views, is one of the most important inventions in the history of photography.

Here, two 1888 140º photographs taken by Moëssard with his Cylindrographe.

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I have either mentioned already, or will be mentioning in up coming chapters;

📷 Damoizeau’s Cyclographe
📷 von Martens’ Megaskop
📷 Lumière’s Photorama containing 12 revolving lenses providing Motion Pictures in a Panoramic experience

Below, a 360º view for the Photorama at the popular resort Dinard, Brittany in 1901.

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Even Eadweard Muybridge did some Panoramic Photography of his own. Here’s one he took of San Francisco in 1877 showing eleven plate views, prior to the Moëssard Cylindrographe in 1884.

Same street on each end means it’s beyond 360°. These are aligned but not sewn.

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1884
TIME STOP DRAWINGS
ARTHUR BURDETT FROST (1851-1928)
The study of the origins of pre cinema often takes us into the world of art. Frost was an American illustrator, painter and artist known for his energetic depiction of motion and sequence. This was due in part, to having met Edward Muybridge. Resulting in Frost drawing Sallie Gardner.

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During the Golden Age of American Illustration (1880s-1920) Frost is measured as one of the great illustrators.

Having met him, Frost was inclined towards the sequential photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. This led to what Frost became known for; his time-stop drawings.

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As a result of his interest in Muybridge’s work, in 1884 Frost created illustrated panels of sequential images which included dialogue, in his book Stuff and Nonsense.

This became a predecessor to the comic strip of the twentieth century.

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Frost’s time stop drawings showing sequence and motion, seems the closest art came to Muybridge’s Chronophotography

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Arthur Burdett Frost’s Nature Study with a Camera, two of 21 drawings for a twenty-panel cartoon published in The Ladies Home Journal, 1915, pen and ink on stiff paper.

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Here from page 62 of Frost’s Stuff and Nonsense some time-stop drawings in a short series of sequential illustrations of a horse in motion.

Without knowing for sure, I believe this to be a tribute to his friend Eadweard Muybridge. Looks a lot like Sallie Gardner minus her rider.

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VIEW Stuff and Nonsense, (Charles Scribner and Sons, New York, 1884) here at Internet Archive. Photograph of Frost from 1894 signed “yours very truly.”

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1864
Bunsen and Roscoe’s work inspired Edward Sonstadt, who founded the Manchester Magnesium Company with Edward Mellor. Engineer William Mather contributed to the development of flat magnesium ribbons that burned more consistently.

Their flash lamp was also made up of a magnesium ribbon and a holder.

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1865
Charles Piazzi Smyth tried magnesium powder with no success when he attempted to photograph the inner sanctum of the pyramids at Giza, Egypt, with a blend of gunpowder and magnesium.

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1884 
EADWEARD JAMES MUYBRIDGE (1830 – 1904)
One of Muybridge’s busiest years came in 1884 as he produced more than 100,000 plates of humans and animals in a countless variety of motions. His work was conducted now at the University of Pennsylvania with a number of different set-ups; three batteries totaling twelve cameras; forty cameras equipped with a Dallmeyer lens and electro-magnetic shutter.

The work was published as  Animal Locomotion; An Electro-Photographic Investigation Of Consecutive Phases Of Animal Movement. It had a chrono-text by a physiologist of the University.

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Muybridge reduced the cost and content of the original work in 1898 to $100 with only the most important plates and photographs included. Two volumes, Animals in Motion and The Human Figure in Motion were sold.

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The two volumes, Animals in Motion and The Human Figure in Motion had a chrono-text by physiologist Lewis S. Brown of the University in the preface.

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1884
THE SCANNING PRINCIPLE AND THE TRANSMISSION OF MOVING PICTURES
PAUL JULIUS GOTTLIEB NIPKOW (1860–1940)
Nipkow’s 1884 Scanning Principle marks the first systematic attempt to transmit moving pictures by decomposing them into time-sequenced image elements. It was a crucial conceptual step from pre cinema optical/mechanical experiments toward television.

His contribution to the pre history of television is tied to what became known as the Scanning Principle, first described in his 1884 patent (Deutsches Reichspatent Nr. 30105, Elektrisches Teleskop DE 30105C), which introduced the Nipkow Disk, a spinning disk with holes that scanned an image line by line onto a light-sensitive cell.

This provided a systematic way to break an image into sequences, essential for moving pictures. The patent stated it was “For the electrical reproduction of luminous objects . . . .to make an object located at place B visible at any other location.”

It was filed 6 January 1884 and granted 15 January 1885. Though still decades away from working video, Nipkow’s idea became the foundation of mechanical television in the 1920s.

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The light variations are captured by a selenium photoelectric cell. Selenium’s property of changing electrical resistance with light intensity, had been discovered earlier. The resulting electrical signal can be transmitted over a wire.

At the receiver’s end, a synchronized disk reconstructs the image by modulating a light source in time with the transmitted variations. This line-by-line scanning principle is the foundation of all television, even though modern systems replaced the disk with electronic methods; first cathode ray tubes, and then digital sensors.

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Nipkow’s disk introduced the concept of sequential scanning, which allowed complex visual information to be transmitted through a single electrical channel. In principle, more holes meant more scan lines, which meant higher resolution, foreshadowing the concept of lines in TV resolution (e.g., 405-line, 625-line, etc.).

The mechanical disk was cheap, understandable, and practical for small experimental systems. To reproduce a picture of decent size and resolution, the disk had to rotate extremely fast, posing problems of noise, stability, and wear. The tiny amount of light passing through each hole resulted in dim images.

Early systems achieved only about 30–50 lines, producing crude, flickering images. Keeping sender and receiver disks perfectly in phase was difficult. Nipkow himself never built a working television. His 1884 patent was more a conceptual leap than a practical device.

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Within two years Anschutz would be using banks of between twelve and twenty-four cameras to obtain his series of photographs.

His ElectroTachyscope projected the finished work, pictured below.

Also called the Elektrischen Schnellseher in it’s native German, it was an early motion picture system created by chronophotographer Ottomar Anschütz. A coin-operated arcade version was made, seen here on the right. Images on celluloid were arranged around a disk.

ROOM CAMERA OBSCURAS
The discovery of the Pinhole effect and development of the Camera Obscura stands at the crossroads of astronomy, perspective, physics (optics), magic and art.

Below, an engraving from Athanasius Kircher’s Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae of 1646 on page 806.

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soon, we will start seeing the word obscura dropped more and more from our lexicon as photography arrives

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Below is an illustration from Sketchbook on Military Art, Including Geometry, Fortifications, Artillery, Mechanics, And Pyrotechnics from an unknown artist possibly Italian.

Seventeenth century. The background shows Brunelleschi’s Duomo in Florence on the right.

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An illustration below in The American Educator; Completely Remodelled and Rewritten from Original Text of The New Practical Reference Library, With New Plans and Additional Material (volume 2; p652) by Ellsworth Foster and James L. Hughes, published by Durham and Company 1919.

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A Vincent Jaques Louis Chevalier (1770-1841) patented Camera Obscura lens and housing for a portable tent as seen in my two previous entries above. From the Foticos Museum Collection.

^{Images the Foticos Museum Collection}

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buy a Camera Obscura for your backyard, it makes a great conversational piece

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Sir Henry Wotton who met Kepler in Linz in 1620 wrote to his acquaintance Francis Bacon and in the letter, Wotton wrote about the Kepler convertible tent camera;

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Cameras of course can come in almost any shape or size; a trailer pulled by a bike; a space ship styled cafe in Bournemouth UK; a pyramid-shaped book, or a Victoria-age bathing change machine in Liverpool.

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Perhaps the very first time someone saw the Pinhole Image cast onto a wall was inside a cave, or in a tent, where there was an opening like a tear in a hide covering and the light streaming in.

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These portrayals of room cameras showing what appears to be a cupid-like figure on the left and a man on the right, are from the Four Books of True Christianity in 1706 by Johann Arnds Weiland.

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This illustration is called Chambre Noire by Alphonse De Neuville and is from 1867. A mother and her children view light pictures.

It’s found in a 19th century book by Fulgence Marion entitled The Wonders of Optics figure 70, page 243 published in 1869.

This same illustration from Fulgence Marion in 1869, turned into a colourful animation.

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There are many many more wonderful examples of all sizes and distinct shapes of the Camera Obscura sprinkled throughout the following chapters. Keep reading.

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TOP
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Welcome	About	Introduction	Chapter One beginning of time – 999 AD
Chapter Two 1000 AD – 1399	Chapter Three 1400 – 1599	Chapter Four 1600 – 1649	Chapter Five 1650 – 1699
Chapter Six 1700 – 1749	Chapter Seven 1750 – 1799	Chapter Eight 1800 – 1819	Chapter Nine 1820 – 1829
Chapter Ten 1830 – 1839	Chapter Eleven 1840 – 1849	Chapter Twelve 1850 – 1859	Chapter Thirteen 1860 – 1869
Chapter Fourteen 1870 – 1879	Chapter Fifteen 1880 – 1884	Chapter Sixteen 1885 – 1889	Chapter Seventeen 1890 – 1894
Chapter Eighteen 1895 – 1899	Chapter Nineteen 1900 + post cinema	Chapter Twenty 1911 +	Copyright
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