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Magic lantern

Set of four photos from different angles of metal box with lens and chimney.

Magic lantern at Rouse Hill Estate

The Rouse Hill House magic lantern is a mid-19th century example of a form of image projector which dates back to the 17th century

Metal lantern slide projector next to electric projector, both with related slides.

Projected across time

In the late 1960s, John Terry, then a young man living at Rouse Hill Estate, composed avant-garde music which he set to abstract projected images, and performed at various locations in Sydney

Automated timber and brass framed circular glass lantern slide featuring fish and other marine creatures. Timber and brass handle operates secondary plate allowing the fish to move.

Animated comic sliders for magic lantern

The magic lantern was a popular entertainment technology in the 19th century used to project stories and comic scenes.

Lantern slide, John Gilpin (scenes 5 to 8), W.E. & F. Newton, London, England, Mid 19th Century, timber and glass

John Gilpin’s Ride

The fictional story of John Gilpin and his misadventures on a runaway horse was originally written as a comic ballad by English poet William Cowper in 1782

Lantern slide, Pussy's Road to Ruin (scenes 9 to 12), W.E. & F. Newton, London, England, circa 1855, timber and glass

Pussy’s road to ruin

‘Pussy’s Road to Ruin’ is not a comic story but a cautionary moral tale for children

A timber framed, circular glass, static lantern slide featuring a hand painted scene of Florence.

Other lantern slides

As well as moveable comic slides the Rouse Hill Estate collection includes two examples of another type of mechanical slide: slides that incorporated a rack and pinion mechanism to create the circular movement of one slide over another

Lantern slide, Tiger in the Tub (scenes 5 to 8), W.E. & F. Newton, London, England, Mid 19th Century, timber and glass

Tale of Tiger and Tub

‘Tiger in the Tub’ is a comic story, told in eight scenes, of two Anglo-Indian residents of Bengal who decide to have a picnic in the countryside

A timber framed glass magic lantern slide featuring a hand-drawn and coloured image of a dentist pulling a tooth. A secondary sliding glass plate provides before and after images of the extraction.

Comic sliders

The Rouse Hill Estate collection of magic lantern slides includes ten comic slip slides, also called sliders or slippers

View inside timber case with paper notice pasted inside lid.

Newton & Co’s ‘Improved Phantasmagoria Lantern’

The magic lantern at Rouse Hill House was manufactured by Newton & Company, Opticians, Scientific Instruments and Globe Makers of Fleet Street, Temple Bar, London