Magic lantern

Manufacturer	Lerebours et Secretan
Name	Fantasmagorie
Place	Paris (France)
Date	1849
Source	Girona History Museum
Register	15176

Extraordinary specimen of magic lantern for phantasmagoria shows (phantoscopes). Only two more lanterns are known in the world like this, with these dimensions and quality. This lantern had been part of the physics cabinet of the Secondary School of the city of Girona and was bought in 1849 from the French house Lerebours et Secretan, specialising in scientific instruments. This device could perform all the projection techniques typical of phantasmagoria shows: projection of glass slides by transparency, projection of opaque bodies by reflection (episcope), movement of the projector placed on an easel with wheels to move it behind the screen, regulation of the lens for focusing and blurring of the image, casting of the projected image through a diaphragm or cat's eye incorporated in front of the lens, adjusting the intensity of light, etc. Many of these techniques were innovations contributed by Robertson, the great promoter of phantasmagoria shows and who popularised them in the late eighteenth century. From the 1820s, several companies specializing in scientific material and optical devices began to market phantoscopes. Thus, for example, the house Lérebours et Sécretan in Paris, offered in its 1846 catalogue two types of phantasmagoria magic lanterns, as well as a good assortment of "tableaux simples à fond noir pour fantasmagorie".

Vídeo Tornar