36.1.2 Cinderella - Not the Movie

In the 1770s, Johann Schröpfer liked to terrify customers of his Brunswick coffee house. Having asked them to fast, and then fed them drugged salad, he would lead them to a darkened room, perform, enrobed, a mystical ceremony - and produce visible (and screaming) spirits hovering over a skull in a chalk circle. He came to a grisly end after becoming over-confident in his necromancing abilities.

In 1797, the Belgian Étienne-Gaspard "Robertson" Robert set up a show where, by moving glass slides quickly through a layer of smoke in his fantascope, he created the illusion that his ghostly images were actually moving on screen. The police called a halt to proceedings in case he brought King Louis back to life...

In 1823, Philip Carpenter introduced an improved 'phantasmagoria' lantern to England. He combined the established technologies of transfer printing on ceramics and the concept of firing painted glass, which derived from stained glass windows.  These were so called as they had originally been used to conjure ghosts. Carpenter's copper plate process allowed outlines to be printed, and quickly hand painted. By the Great Exhibition, the technology was an established and popular form of entertainment - half a century before cinema caught on.

A C19 magic lantern

However, quality was generally poor, and people started experimenting with transfer pictures to achieve greater accuracy. The first successful producer was our Jabez Barnard, around 1870. His Patent Enamel Slides used transfers printed in enamel colours and the slides were fired after the colours had been applied. His early slides were marked with 'B&S Patent' (Barnard and Son). The artist drew the original on to a lithographic stone, and had to determine the choice and separation of the colours. In Hecht's view, their quality was never surpassed.

There were twenty sets in his first issue, including royal, religious, topographical subject; also animals, e.g. the "Giraffe, a beautiful and curious animal [also known as a] camel-leopard, bearing some resemblance to both these animals" The set also featured several fairy tales, including Cinderella.

Barnard's Cinderella (credit)

And I have some in my collection too:

Barnard magic lantern slides (my collection)

With thanks to Hermann Hecht who delivered a lecture to the Magic Lantern Society in 1979 and the Dutch Virtual Magic Lantern Museum.


Next (Siblings of Elizabeth Barnard (née Wilson))