Toy Magic Lanterns

From the 1850s, opticians were producing small magic lanterns on a cottage industry scale for use by children; the huge success enjoyed by this toy soon led to its industrialisation, as much in France, where Lapierre had the monopoly for it, as in Germany, at Nuremberg, where companies were producing plates printed with scenes. Home projection put the roving showman out of business.

In France, Auguste Lapierre, ironmonger-handyman set up in Paris in 1848, began making polychrome magic lanterns painted in bright colours coated in alcohol-based varnish and operated with a paraffin lamp. In 1884, the Lapierre company took over its competitor Aubert, the real inventor of this type of lanterns, From the end of the XIXth century, the Lapierre factory, which had expanded, manufactured large projection lamps. Lapierre also produced series of plates, recognizable by their edge-binding tape of green paper. It was recognized as the specialist in the Tales of Perrault, narrated on panoramic plates, where small texts and images take their turns.

 

Illustration :
Magic toy lantern, Lapierre, France, around 1880.