Phantasmagoria magic lantern slide depicting skull, Gift of Akram Miknas, and Museum Purchase, ©Academy Museum Foundation, Photo by Joshua White Photography/JW Pictures.

Phantasmagoria magic lantern slide depicting skull

Clark’s Ghost Illusion

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Inventing Worlds and Characters: Animation gallery, Stories of Cinema 3, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. Photo by Joshua White, JWPictures/©Academy Museum Foundation

Inventing Worlds and Characters: Animation gallery, Stories of Cinema 3

Highlights From Our Collection

In the Romantic era of the late 1700s and 1800s, long before Freddy or Jason or Hannibal Lecter, audiences queued up for performances that used “magic lanterns”: precursors of the slide projector that incorporated a concave mirror behind a candle, lamp, or limelight to project light through a small, image-bearing glass slide and lens. 

Phantasmagoria magic lantern slide depicting skull, Gift of Akram Miknas, and Museum Purchase, ©Academy Museum Foundation, Photo by Joshua White Photography/JW Pictures