He made more than 2000 drawings which were reproduced as magic lantern slides. Joseph Boggs Beale produced drawings to be reproduced as lantern slides. Slides From DrawingsĪmericans developed a technique for making slides that was rarely used elsewhere in the world: creating a master drawing, photographing it, and then printing slides. Such sets also came with what is referred to as a reading, or script describing the story slide by slide. They were sold in boxed sets of eight to 12 or more, and covered more subjects than mentioned before. If they are colored, it was necessary to hand color them, since color photography was not widely available during the peak production of this type slide.Īdditionally, many popular slides produced in Europe were also transfer slides of children’s fairy or folk tales, such as Alice in Wonderland, John Gilpin’s Ride, Cinderella and so on. Such slides were produced by black and white photography, and remain that way on many. Most of these two sizes of slides consist of two sheets of glass, one of which has the image on one side of it and the other which covers the image, and bound all around by a black paper tape. However, both sizes seem to have been produced in countries other than the United States and England. If they are 3.25 inches square, then they are known as the British size. Three and a quarter inches by four inches, are generally thought of as American size. The Langenheims first put a positive photographic image on glass in 1848 by the 1850s they were offering photographic slides commercially along with their glass stereoviews. In this 10X enlargement you can really see how each hand-drawn dot in the chromo print (left) is uniquely different than the photo-mechanical ‘ruled’ dots in today’s modern 4-color offset prints (right image). The colored pictures were printed, details first, background last, and then finished by a coat of glue. Porous paper was coated with a solution of starch, albumen and glycerin. Images were printed in colors by the chromo-litho principle, and then transfered to glass. The technique was used by professional slide makers, but enjoyed a vogue among amateurs too.

In the world of magic lanterns we specifically mean the application of this process while making a lantern slide by transferring an image to a square or oblong piece of glass. Decalcomania or Chromolitho Slidesīy the difficult term Decalcomania we describe the technique of transferring pictures from specially prepared paper to surfaces such as glass, china, pottery etc. This type of transfer slide was produced in the many thousands over a period from the mid-1800s to the 1920s or so, and shipped all over the world.

With the improvements of printing techniques on glass, mass produced slides became possible. Slides are transfers or decals stuck onto the glass strips.Ĭommonly slides are listed as hand painted but in fact they are printed.

Many made in Germany, and frequently are rectangular strips of glass of many sizes, with blue, green, red, orange, pink or yellow paper edging glued on so not to cut children’s hands. Hand painted slide imagesĬhildren’s toy magic lantern slides. They can be recognized by the simple paint areas applied with a brush and the obvious brush strokes.Ĭlose-up hand painted areas, note continuous color laid down with brushed on darker color for shadows. The lantern slide has its origins in 17th century optical viewing devices which came to be known as “magic lanterns.” The earliest slides for magic lanterns consisted of hand-painted images on glass, projected by itinerant showmen telling stories about the images that were projected.

Magic lantern