Magic lantern
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.
Comic sliders
The Rouse Hill Estate collection of magic lantern slides includes ten comic slip slides, also called sliders or slippers
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
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
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
Other lantern slides
As well as moveable comic slides the Rouse Hill House 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.
Projected across time
In the late 1960s, John Terry, then a young man living at Rouse Hill House, composed avant-garde music which he set to abstract projected images, and performed at various locations in Sydney
Pussy’s road to ruin
‘Pussy’s Road to Ruin’ is not a comic story but a cautionary moral tale for children
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