Fantascope.

Six discs each with a hand coloured aquatint design by Bury, 245 mm. diameter; contained in the original folder; the upper cover with paper label, chipped, incorporating subjects from the discs, rebacked with cloth and with new cotton ties, the front paste down with a descriptive letterpress dated July 1833. The discs comprising a fierce head, jumping frog, snakes, monkey, circles, and dancer. There at least three versions of this fantascope, with different selection of discs and consequent different labels to the front panel; this one seems to be the least common. The handle, as usual, is not present here, although a modern reproduction is available on-line. Michael Faraday demonstrated the effect at the Royal Institute in February 1831 where he showed that the spinning image seen though 16 slits made it appear stationary. Joseph Plateau of Ghent had the imagination to give each image a slight variation which gave the image the appearance of movement, though he did not think to give a name to it. Ackermann saw the commercial possibilities and commissioned B.T. Bury, who had earlier produced for Ackermann a series of views of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, to design a series of discs for an optical toy which he named the fantascope.

Product Info

Publisher: Ackermann & Co., 1833.

Type: Used

Binding: Softcover

Seller Info

MichaelKempBookseller

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Country: United Kingdom