Virtual Exhibitions > The Magic Lantern

The Magic Lantern

The Magic Lantern - essentially the same instrument as the modern slide projector - developed from origins at least as early as medieval science, hence the term 'magic'. In its modern form it appears to date from the mid-17th century. Lantern shows were increasingly popular as public entertainment throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, as this sample of images from the Bill Douglas and Peter Jewell collection begins to suggest. In the Victorian period the lantern underwent continuous technical development, one result of which was the film-based moving picture projector or cinematograph.

Danish magic lantern print (1718)
'Experiments at Dover' print (1806)
German magic lantern print (early 19th Century)
The itinerant 'Savoyard' lanternist
Dissolving views (mid 19th Century)
Portable magic lanterns
A Victorian family Christmas show
The Magic Lantern, Its Principle and How to Use It
Lantern lecturer's reading lamp
War Pictures: a lantern show

Further reading:
David Robinson (compiler), Magic Images: Iconography of the Magic Lantern 1420-1880 (London: The Magic Lantern Society, 1993). ISBN 0 9510441 2 5.