Fun and games, nr 1: A question of perspective.

The Italian Garden

It is always a question of the right perspective. Is it not? 

Hello my friends,

What to do in the Eighteen hundreds to divert oneself? Espescially on long winter evenings, when family and guests are preventing you from reading a good book in solitude? Even an eight course meal can take only so much time... And one can not always play (card) games in the drawingroom or listen to cousin Eloise singing or Ludwig playing on the harpsichord... 

No. No, sometimes you need to show off some novelty or other! Evidently, the wealthy could afford more time and money on leisure entertainment than the rest of society.

                       

People like the Zonneschut's did not work to pay their way. They made their (inherited) fortune, land, houses (shares in) companies, and such work for them. And they employ stewards, directors, tennants, and servants to do all the work needed and keep the household running smoothly. So what to do on those long evenings to amuse oneself and ones guests? Do pity those poor rich bastards (please excuses my language) 😉

I want to make miniature versions of some of these items used for entertainment, and share them here with you. This is the first part of a small series. Most items may be familiar to you as Victorian pieces. They all originate from earlier times though. But up and until the Victorian era none were mass produced or even available to the middle classes. 

I can place the finished pieces in the salon or in the attic. I do not have a fixed idea yet where to put them. But first let me try to make them all as intended! 

The peep show or diorama. 

The first object for amusement I want to show you is the peep show. Not to worry, nothing unsavoury, salubrious or risqué here. Just the classic paper peepshow with cut out paper scenes placed behind each other to suggest depth, just like the two examples in the pictures above. The perspective gives a feel of fthree dimensionality. These were very popular in the 18th century. Espescialy scenes in grand gardens, churches, palatial rooms and hunting scenes were in demand. 

Several printers published sets.Artist Martin Engelbrecht (1684-1756) and his brother Christian were printsellers and engravers in Augsburg, Germany during the eighteenth century. They were perhaps the most prolific in sets for paper peep shows. The apparatus to hold these were often made from card board but several antique wooden examples survive unto today too. 

This type of entertainment was still out of reach of the common man, but from the middle classes upwards these were available to anyone who wanted to pay for them. 

Because most of my tools and materials are (still, I know) packed I used 2mm thick, acid free, cardboard. I cut out all required pieces for an 8 cm deep box. And evidently I glued them together. It resembles a marble sarcophagus more than an object for divertisment, but bear with me. 

The rectangular piece of cardboard you see on the right of the picture above is not glued on for a purpose. It will be the front of a drawer in the bottom part of the box to store the different sets. 

It was quite difficult to find pictures of the individual sheets of sets. Often you see the ensemble together. Which can be stunning, but of no use to me. Luckily I managed to scrape some pretty sets together from different museum websites. 

I have printed them om paper and glued them to another sheet of printing paper. pressing them under a stack of books to make sure they stay flat. Then I cut them out including the holes in the sheets so you can see the sheet(s) behind it when they are placed in their slots inside the box. To make sure the slots on each side of the box line up, I cut out a little template to make sure the little card board support I side the box line up. It worked quite well although I glued the template together with the support u to the box two or three times... 

As you can see in this test run, the sheets are stacked behind each other to give the illusion of depth. 

With the drawer in place, it is time to decorate the outside. I first painted it in a bone white on the outside and a dark blue on the inside.  Lastly I added some patina through the use of a varnish tinted with a little drop of umber. 

Well this is the first item I planned on making in this category. Unfortunately the camera I use finds it difficult to really focus on the sheets on such a short distance. In reality the little prints are sharper and more detailed than the pictures show here. But you can see the perspective works when looking through the peephole. 

 I hope that you like it. Soon I will show you the next piece that I am making. Which is the perspective box. 

The Cathedral

But there is more. The Zonneschut's will also get a paper theatre. I also plan on making a 'laterna magica' and something called a 'diafanorama'. And last but not least a 'camera obscura' as well. But with that last one we actualy leave the realm of 18th century parlour games and go towards one of Lady Zonneschut's favorite hobby's, painting! 

Stay well!

Huibrecht 

The Royal Library