Magic lantern

Manufacturer	Carpenter & Westley
Name	Phantasmagoria Lantern. Dissolving views
Place	London (Great Britain)
Date	circa 1850
Register	05948

Double tin magic lantern painted black, with disc shutter on the front to create the effect of chained casting of images or "dissolving views", with achromatic lens of sliding spotlights, a high-quality condensing lens, an Argand lamp and with crooked flues to prevent light from inside the device from escaping through the tube. It was produced by the London company Carpenter & Westley, one of the oldest, most important and prestigious in the manufacture of magic lanterns in Great Britain, and which was active between 1808 and 1914. Philip Carpenter, an English optician, was the founder of the company and in 1821 created a new model of magic lantern, which he called The Improved Phantasmagoria Lantern. It was the first model of lantern mass-produced for commercialisation. The advertising claim was that middle-class consumers could emulate, in a familiar setting, the popular ghostly shows of Robertson or Philidor. The clarity of the images produced by this lantern (due to the layout and quality of its lenses), its small size, general simplicity and cheap manufacturing are some of the reasons for its commercial success. This double lantern model, marketed in the mid-nineteenth century, is an improvement on the original Phantasmagoria Lantern model.

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