Márcia Vilarigues and Vanessa Otero

Hand-painted Magic Lantern Slides and the

19th-century Colourmen Winsor & Newton
Márcia Vilarigues and Vanessa Otero  Hand-painted Magic Lantern Slides

C
ultural Heritage enriches the life of citizens, contributes to the indi-
vidual and shared understanding of national identity, and has a
significant economic impact by attracting tourists.1 As part of our
tangible cultural heritage, historical objects play an essential role in the con-
struction of our social memory, thus their preservation also preserves our
collective past.
The magic lantern was a relevant apparatus for the projection of images. The
simultaneous projection of images and use of sounds made the magic lantern
an audio-visual form which was attractive for 19th-century practices of enter-
tainment and education. Magic lanterns were used in street shows as well as
in salons and theatres, in academies of science and art, and also by the Catholic
Church to teach its doctrine.2
Research on magic lanterns and historical glass slides has been predominately
centred on their role as a precursor to film and cinema. This research has
resulted in valuable information on social, cultural and economic relationships
in the specific context of entertaining and performing arts, and has contributed
to an understanding of the history and technical evolution of the apparatus and
production processes.3 Recently, awareness has arisen that the magic lantern
should be perceived as a medium and a cultural phenomenon representing a
distinct screen practice.4 The socio-political contexts in which magic lanterns
were used has been a topic in media historical investigations.5 Initiatives to
develop appropriate systems for cataloguing and access have produced first
results (e.g. the European A Million Pictures project 2015–2018).6 Despite this
interest, no systematic information is available to date on the materials and
techniques used in the production of magic lantern glass slides.
Until the appearance of photography (and even after) the images projected
with magic lanterns were hand-painted on glass plates. This required the
mastery of miniature painting on a glass substrate; since the projections
magnified details and imperfections, hand-painted glass slides are considered
to be miniature masterpieces in their own right.7
Three different techniques were used for the manufacture of the image on glass
slides for projection by magic lanterns – the first were hand-painted; this gave
way to printing techniques in the first half of the 19th century, and in the second
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 A Million Pictures: Magic Lantern Slides in the History of Learning

half, to photographic techniques, although the last two often included hand-
colouring.8 The images, painted in watercolour or oil, represented scenes
ranging from fables and children’s stories to mythological, phantasmagoria,
allegorical and comic themes to current events, art works and scientific im-
ages.9 Colour transparency was an important issue, and watercolours were
generally preferred to oil, but sometimes both were used in combination.10
The project Lanterna Magica – Technology and Preservation of painted glass slides for
projection with Magic Lanterns11 will link the analysis of documented methods
and materials used to produce painted glass slides, the reproduction of histori-
cal recipes in the laboratory and the development of preservation methodolo-
gies for existing collections.
A selected set of hand-painted glass slides from Cinemateca Portuguesa –
Museu do Cinema, Museu da Imagem em Movimento and the Portuguese
Research Infrastructure of Scientific Collections (PRISC), dating from the 18th
to the 20th century and produced by a range of international manufacturers,
constitute the corpus for the study into to the materials properties. Results of
Laterna Magica will be made available at Lucerna: The Magic Lantern Web Resource.
The innovative combined approach of Laterna Magica, to investigate the mate-
rial and immaterial role of magic lantern glass slides, will directly impact on
their preservation, interpretation and appreciation.

The newly developed watercolours

In 1832, Henry Charles Newton founded together with William Winsor one
of the most important 19th-century colourmen enterprise for artists: Winsor &
Newton (W&N).12 They made an important contribution to the art world with
their improvement of watercolours: in 1835, W&N introduced moist water-
colours based on the addition of glycerine.13
A comprehensive study of W&N’s 19th-century catalogues by Leslie Carlyle
established what products W&N offered throughout the 19th century: oils,
mediums,14 driers, varnishes as well as paints in powder and in oil.15 W&N
became one of the leading colourmen for artists in Britain and, by the end of
the 19th century, of the world. They were committed to producing high quality
products, and recent investigation supports this claim.16
In their catalogue of ca. 1835, W&N provided a list of their newly developed
moist watercolours. In total they were selling colours “prepared in spirits, in
impalpable powder, for oil or watercolour painting; also, in Bladders, finely
ground in oil”.17 Throughout the 19th century, W&N’s catalogues bear evi-
dence of a continually expanding range of materials. Their ca. 1870 catalogue
consists of 205 pages and includes watercolours (in diverse containers such as
cakes, pans and tubes), oil colours in tubes, pigments, oils, varnishes, inks,
canvas and millboards, as well as a range of brushes and painter’s boxes. Their
catalogues detail is also taken to inform customers of their successes, for
example in their 1849 catalogue they state:
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 Márcia Vilarigues and Vanessa Otero $ Hand-painted Magic Lantern Slides

Fig. 1: Box with W&N’s Colours and Materials for Painting on Glass,vaila catalogue from 1863, 28.
Digital image ©Winsor & Newton (ColArt Fine Art & Graphics Ltd.).
Reproduced with permission.

Fifteen years of experience has now tested the qualities of THE MOIST
COLOURS, and the very large and rapidly increasing demand, as well as the very
flattering Testimonials received by Messrs. Winsor & Newton from Continental
and English Artists, are evidence of the high estimation in which they are held.18

The Winsor & Newton 19th-century archive database

The W&N 19th-century archive19 is a unique primary documentary source
covering handwritten formulation instructions and workshop notes for pig-
ments, paints, grounds and varnishes, together with shop floor accounts (time
and pricing for manufacturing their products). Access to these records provide
insight into W&N’s deep concern about the quality, durability and reliability
of their products. To date, no other comprehensive historical archive of
detailed instructions for the manufacture of artists’ materials is available to
researchers.20 The W&N 19th-century archive has been available since 2006. It
associates a computer-based indexing system with high resolution digitized
images from each page of a manuscript.21 The Researcher’s Edition (RE) of
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 A Million Pictures: Magic Lantern Slides in the History of Learning

the database contains 15,003 database records with 3,579 restricted records22
due to their commercial sensitivity at the time of its construction. Presently,
the Researcher’s Edition is available at five locations.23
W&N watercolours for magic lantern slides
Specific colours and materials by W&N for painting on glass are mentioned
for the first time in their catalogue from 1863 (see Fig. 1).
Interestingly, this catalogue lists the fourth edition of the book The Art of
Transparent Painting on Glass, a manual on the “method of painting, and an
account of the implements and materials employed in producing subjects for
dissolving views, magic lanterns … for obtaining effects of motion and col-
our”.24 According to Groom, the colours used for painting on glass were those
“prepared for watercolour painting, and procurable in tubes” as they were
“transparent, that is, through which light is transmitted”.25 The list of colours
described by Groom is detailed in Table 1, together with the number of times
they appear in the W&N 19th-century Archive Database. These records refer
to various aspects of the preparation of the paints – from pigment manufacture
to watercolour preparation (as well as diverse containers such pans and tubes).
However, the previously mentioned restrictions imposed on the Research
Edition database heavily concern records about the preparation of the water-
colour paints. In the framework of the project Lanterna Magica it will be possible
to have full access to the W&N archive including the restricted records, but
also samples from historical tubes used for painting on glass.
Table 1. List of colours used for painting on glass and their number of database
records.
Colour Number of database records
(available/restricted)*
Gamboge 171/66
Italian Pink 68/9
Gallstone 4/3
Indian Yellow 102/37
Madder Lake 49/47
Crimson Lake 231/27
Prussian Blue 114/39
Indigo 89/48
Burnt Sienna 106/44
Madder Brown 139/138
Vandyke Brown 119/18
Lamp Black 83/53
*Numbers from the RE Database.

Future work: the manufacture of historical glass slides

Thorough investigations of recipe books in the W&N 19th-century archive
database26 has produced new information regarding manufacturing processes
and paint formulations, allowing reconstructions with historical appropriate
materials and techniques. The accuracy of the reconstructions as reference
materials has been validated by comparison showing good correlation with
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 Márcia Vilarigues and Vanessa Otero $ Hand-painted Magic Lantern Slides

analysis of microsamples from historic manuscripts, paintings and artists’

materials. This work demonstrates the high impact of applying a trans-disci-
plinary methodology to study historical materials, triggering and supporting a
growing interest in this field of research from (technical) Art History, Archae-
ology and Conservation as well as from contemporary artists.
As part of our work for Lanterna Magica, we will add to these studies by
reconstructing recipes for moist watercolours, of particular importance to the
studies of hand-painted glass slides. With these historically accurate reference
materials, further studies will be undertaken to address the evaluation of
methods for conservation and preservation. These reconstructions will also
allow an assessment of the current condition of the actual glass slides and how
they may have appeared originally (e.g. the extent of change that has occurred
on the originals). Finally, they will be used as a material for workshops and
exhibition on the production of historical glass slides and by artists for new
artistic production.
With Lanterna Magica, we aim to deepen our understanding of the context in
which historical glass slides were produced. We will trace the production of
glass lantern slides from the initial preparation of the materials employed,
especially of glass and paints, to the finished product. The data obtained from
the analyses of the historical glass and paints will allow us to create a spatial-
temporal map identifying the network of manufacturers and the technical
evolution over time of this socially important medium.
Notes
1. See Cornelia Dümcke and Mikhail Gnedovsky, “Introduction”, in Cornelia Dümcke and Mikhail
Gnedovsky (ed.), The Social and Economic Value of Cultural Heritage: literature review, EENC Paper
(2013), 4–8 (accessed on 27 July 2018, http://www.interarts.net/descargas/interarts2557.pdf).
2. See Isabelle Saint-Martin, “Du vitrail à la lanterne magique: le catéchisme en images”, in Ségolène Le
Men (ed.), Lanternes magiques, tableaux transparents. Les dossiers du musée d’Orsay (1986–1997), no.
57 (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 1995), 105–120; see also Donata Pesenti Campagnoni,
“História da Lanterna Malográfica vulgarmente dita Lanterna Mágica”, in Paolo Bertetto and Donata
Pesenti Campagnoni (ed.), A Magia da Imagem: A Arqueologia do Cinema através das Colecções do
Museu Nacional do Cinema de Turim (Lisboa: Fundação das Descobertas et al. 1996), 58–89.
3. See Laurent Mannoni and Donata Pesenti Campagnoni, Lanterne magique et film peint: 400 ans de
cinéma (Paris: Éditions de la Martinière, 2009).
4. See Frank Gray, “Engaging with the Magic Lantern’s History”, in Ludwig Vogl-Bienek and Richard
Crangle (ed.), Screen Culture and the Social Question 1880–1914 (New Barnet: John Libbey
Publishing, 2014), 173–180.
5. See Ludwig Vogl-Bienek, Lichtspiele im Schatten der Armut. Historische Projektionskunst und soziale
Frage (Frankfurt am Main and Basel: Stroemfeld Verlag, 2016).
6. See the contribution by Francisco Javier Frutos Esteban and Carmen López San Segundo in the
present volume.
7. See Francisco Javier Frutos, “From Luminous Pictures to Transparent Photographs: The Evo-
lution of Techniques for Making Magic Lantern Slides”, The Magic Lantern Gazette, vol. 25, no.
3 (2013): 3–11.
8. Ibid., 5–8.
9. See Pesenti Campagnoni, “História”.
10. Frutos, “From Luminous Pictures”, 3, 6.

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11. For details on the project please consult: https://sites.fct.unl.pt/lanterna_magica/pages/lanterna-

magica (last accessed on 5 August 2019).
12. See timeline of the company (accessed on 5 August 2019, http://www.winsornew-
ton.com/row/discover/about-us/timeline).
13. See Rosamond D. Harley, “Background & Development of the Artist Colourmen”, in Rosemond D.
Harley, A Brief History of Winsor & Newton (Harrow: Winsor & Newton, Ltd., 1975), 3–5.
14. The term “medium” here “refers to the liquid in which the pigment is suspended to make paint”
(accessed on 5 August 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/m/medium).
15. Leslie Carlyle, The Artist’s Assistant: Oil Painting Instruction Manuals and Handbooks in Britain,
1800–1900, with Reference to Selected Eighteenth-century Sources (London: Archetype Publications,
2001).
16. See Vanessa Otero et al., “Nineteenth century chrome yellow and chrome deep from Winsor &
NewtonTM”, Studies in Conservation, vol. 62, no. 3 (2017): 123–149; Vanessa Otero et al., “A little
key to oxalate formation in oil paints: protective patina or chemical reactor?”, Photochemical &
Photobiological Sciences, no. 17 (2018): 266–270; Tatiana Vitorino et al., “Nineteenth-century cochineal
lake pigments from Winsor & Newton: insight into their methodology through reconstructions”, in Janet
Bridgland (ed.), ICOM-CC 18th Triennial Conference Preprints “Linking Past and Future”: Copenhagen,
4–8 September 2017 (Paris: ICOM-CC, 2017), art. no. 0107.
17. Winsor & Newton Catalogue (London, ca. 1835), 28.
18. Winsor & Newton Catalogue (London 1849), 3.
19. For more information on the archive, please consult: http://webapps.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/wn
(last accessed on 5 August 2018).
20. See Sally A. Woodcock, “The Roberson Archive: Content and Significance”, in Arie Wallert, Erma
Hermens and Marja Peek (ed.), Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice, Preprints
of a Symposium Held at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, 26–29 June 1995 (Marina
Del Rey, CA: Getty Conservation Institute, 1995), 30–37 (http://www.getty.edu/conserva-
tion/publications_resources/pdf_publications/pdf/historical_paintings.pdf); Mark Clarke,
“Nineteenth-century English artists’ colourmen’s archives as a source of technical information”, in Stefanos
Kroustallis et al. (ed.), Art Technology: Sources and Methods (London: Archetype Publications, 2008),
75–84; Leslie Carlyle et al., “A question of scale and terminology, extrapolating from past practices in
commercial manufacture to current laboratory experience: the Winsor & Newton 19th century artists’ materials
archive database”, in Janet Bridgland (ed.), Preprints of the 16th Triennial Meeting, ICOM Committee
for Conservation, Lisbon 19–23 September 2011 (Lisbon: Critério-Produção Grafica, Lda., 2011), art.
no. 0102.
21. See Mark Clarke and Leslie Carlyle, “Page-image recipe databases, a new approach for accessing art
technological manuscripts and rare printed sources: the Winsor & Newton archive prototype”, in Isabelle
Sourbès-Verger (ed.), Preprints of the 14th Triennial Meeting, ICOM Committee for Conservation, The
Hague, 12–16 September 2016, vol. I (London: James & James, Earthscan, 2005), 24–29; Mark
Clarke and Leslie Carlyle, “Page-image Recipe Databases: A New Approach to Making Art Technological
Manuscripts and Rare Printed Sources Accessible”, in Mark Clarke, Joyce H. Townsend, Ad Stijnman
(ed.), Art of the Past. Sources and Reconstructions (London: Archetype Publications, 2005), 49–52.
22. It is expected that the full unrestricted edition of the database will come on-line within the near
future. Contact the Hamilton Kerr Institute, Cambridge University, UK, for more information
(http://www.hki.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/archives/winsor-and-newton).
23. See Carlyle et al., “A question of scale and terminology”. The locations are: in the Netherlands, the
Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD); in the UK, The Hamilton Kerr
Institute, University of Cambridge; The Conservation and Technology Department, Courtauld
Institute of Art, University of London; Department of Conservation, Tate Britain; and in Portugal,
the Department of Conservation and Restoration, Faculty of Sciences and Technology, NOVA
University of Lisbon.
24. Edward Groom, The Art of Transparent Painting on Glass (London: Winsor & Newton, 1855). 17.
25. Ibid.
26. See Carlyle et al., “A question of scale and terminology”; Otero et al., “Nineteenth century chrome
yellow”; Otero et.al., “A little key to oxalate formation”; Vitorino et al., “Nineteenth-century cochineal
lake pigments”.

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