Magin Lantern - Between art and knick-knack

Between art and knick-knack.
Useful and decorative objects, the valuable to the worthless, the wonderful to the hideous, but always with a connection to the magic lantern.

Pencil sharpener.

Die cast metal pencil sharpener in the shape of a vintage Magic Lantern Projector. Lens moves in and out by means of a real rack and pinion focusing system and the handle turns around. Overall height approx. 3 1/2" (8,25 cm). Nice details.

Lears' Magic Lantern Plate.

A patterned plate from "Lears' Victorian Magic Lantern Slide" collection. This plate is provided with a picture of London Bridge.
The Lears were professional lanternists who operated in the UK in the 1970's. They were famous for their shows on a canal narrow boat and renowned for the quality of their material and projection skills. Plates like these were made to sell on their narrow boat to people who attended their shows.

	French thimble c. 1850. This is a very rare French silver thimble with a scene from the fable of Florian "Le singe qui montre la lanterne magique" (The monkey displaying the magic lantern). Left: Trade card depicting the same monkey. Sizes of the card 11 cm x 8 cm.
		French tapestry, c. 1890. Another object that is related to Florian's famous fable. A beautiful tapestry depicting the monkey and its lantern in action. Dimensions 20.4 x 24.8 inches (52 x 62 cm). Probably the tapestry was intended to be used in the nursery.

Dutch ceramic tiles.

Two vintage Dutch tiles that display an itinerant lanternist carrying a magic lantern, accompanied by a young man (his helper?). These tiles are in the typical Dutch "Delfts blauw" style (Delft's blue). They are definitely of the 19th C. period and may even go back to the 18th C. Dimensions are 13 x 13 x 0.7 cm or 5 x 5 x 1/4 inches.

Meissen figurine.

A very rare porcelain Meissen figurine of a lanternist carrying the magic lantern on his back while playing the hurdy-gurdy. It measures 15 cm tall. It's marked at the bottom with the crossed swords (Meissen's trade mark) and dated pre 1910.

Meissen porcelain is produced at their factory near Dresden in Germany, from 1710 until the present day. It was the first successfully produced true porcelain in Europe.

Paperweight

An early 3" (c. 7.5 cm) diameter glass paperweight. The bottom is recessed , etched and advertising: 'Magic Lanterns Photo Supplies - PARTRIDGE - 226 Bush St. San Francisco.'


French board game A very special French board game: "LE TOUR DE FRANCE" (Jeu instructif et amusant - An instructive and amusing game). In one of the corners a nice engraving depicting a DUBOSQ science magic lantern, made c. 1883 in Paris by Louis Jules Dubosq (left). "Réception d'une dépèche par pigeon voyageur à l'état-major" (Reception of a message by homing pigeon at the headquarters). During the Franco-German war of 1870/71 pigeons were used for a kind of air-mail. As the "PIGEONGRAMMES" were printed on a microfilm, the received message had to be enlarged by means of a magic lantern to make it readable. The other engravings are scenes from Jeanne d'Arc and of the Battle of Wagram (1809) of Napoleon. Size: 30" x 22" (73.5 x 56 cm).
	French powder-compact. Early French hand coloured combination of a powder-box and an optical tool. The lady in blue has a magic lantern in her lap that projects images of two lovers onto the side of a tomb. (How did one come up with such a thing?) This box measures c. 1.5" high by 4" wide (4 x 10 cm) and dates to the mid 19th Century.


Computer software Software for the Amiga computer. "MAGIC LANTERN" is a frame-buffer animation program that facilitates playback from the hard disk. The program creates, edits, and displays compressed animations. It takes Amiga IFF files created with other paint programs and creates animations that run on a variety of frame buffers.

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