Nekes collection of optical devices, prints and games. ca. 1700-ca. 1996.

ArchivalResource

Nekes, Werner, 1944-. Nekes collection of optical devices, prints and games.

Nekes collection of optical devices, prints and games. ca. 1700-ca. 1996.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/419227054

The Nekes collection of optical devices, prints and games charts the nature of visual perception in modern European culture at a time when optical devices such as the magic lantern evolved from instruments of natural magic to forms of entertainment. The bulk of the items date from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century (1740-1920). The collection contains rare items, such as a French camera obscura, ca. 1750, as well as popular images such as 19th-century magic lantern slides, paper silhouettes, and greeting cards with moving parts. Other items include an 18th century peepshow, prints depicting a variety of optical devices and phenomena, ca. 100 megalographs, a camera lucida, a Lorrain mirror, a zograscope, anamorphosis watercolors accompanied by a cone viewer, and ca. 20 collapsible Engelbrecht perspective theaters. Series I. Prints, includes a broad variety of illustrations used for educational and entertainment purposes. Documentary images illustrate the design of anamorphic drawings as well as the use of optical games, such as the magic lantern, various types of peepshows, the praxinoscope, and the zoetrope. A group of technological prints shows the use of the camera lucida and fictional visions of scientific progress (En l'an 2000). Paper toys have moveable or foldable parts (including games from the Imagerie d'Epinal). Illustrations used for entertainment with backlighting include a number of vues d'optique, pin-pricked prints, and polyorama slides. Series II. Cards and other small printed items, such as: Biedermeier greeting cards (with moveable parts or fold-out windows), backlit postcards of city views (by day and by night), 22 Protean prints (by William Spooner) and five polyorama discs. Also included are more than 100 18th-century megalographs (i.e. shadowgraphy figures) of historical personages and caricatures, as well as several Spanish "metamorphosis instantaneas." Seven albums with hundreds of advertising cards from Liebig Fleisch illustrate a range of themes appealing to popular audiences. Series III. Artifacts, includes optical instruments and artists' aids, such as the Lorrain mirror, a zograscope and a book-form camera obscura, used to view perspective prints. Devices used for entertainment include an English magic lantern (the Praestantia, by the Riley brothers) with slides, various examples of peepshows (ranging from the Engelbrecht theaters to some 20th-century three-dimensional paper souvenirs) and a few thaumatropes and phenakistoscope discs. A large selection of games includes montage toys, such as a myriorama by Friedrich Campe and a physionotrace, mica overlays and flip books, as well as a magnetic lottery and a polymorphoscope with a multifaceted lens. This series also includes an 18th-century anamorphosis cone and pictures, the shadowgraphy game Ombres chinoises (by L. Saussine Editeur) and two stereoscopes (a Holmes and a Brewster model) with about 80 glass stereo slides of European landscapes. Viewers for backlit illustrations include two polyorama panoptique (in medium and large format) and a foldable peepshow box for vues d'optique. The largest item is a standing wooden column stereo viewer.

ca. 45 linear ft. (ca. 890 items in 75 boxes, 1 flat file folder)

Getty Research Institute