Scriptural Lantern Lecture Sets
Williams’ description of the biblical slides provides the most detailed information about the images that he projected. The content and sequence of these images mirror Carpenter and Westley’s scriptural slides, making extant examples of this commercial set the the closest visual analogues to Williams’ lost lantern slides. Advertisements indicate that Carpenter & Westley’s Scriptural set, which consisted of 40 copperplate-printed images, sold for £ 4:4. To conserve space and weight, these images were embedded in twelve “sliders” — so called because the wooden frame slides horizontally to transition between images. According to the 1850 edition of Companion to the Improved Phantasmagoria Lantern, the sliders were sold with the caveat that “This set is never separated” (p. 14). The description of the sliders in the Companion masks the fact that some scriptural sets included different copperplate printed images. The interchangeability of these images perhaps led to an error in the catalog— the set supposedly contains forty subjects but only thirty nine are listed. In order to trace the degree to which images evolved over time and varied between sets, I will compare sliders from the National Science Museum in London, Willem A.Wagenaars' Christiaan Huygens Theater Collection, the Trevor Beattie Collection, and a set in my own care....the scripture pieces are those which excite the deepest interest. … the birth of Christ, Simeon taking Christ in his arms, and the flight into Egypt, and indeed all that had reference to the Saviour excited prodigious interest: but when the plate of the Crucifixion was shown, there was a general sobbing; their feelings were overcome, and they gave vent to them by weeping.[1]
The catalog below and subsequent reconstructions of the scriptural lecture set focus on a set of sliders in my own care. The chipped glass and flaking paint suggest that the slides in this set were used extensively during their working life. The set was probably manufactured between 1850 and 1860, for the frames have not been painted black. While these slides were not made until after Williams’ death, they do contain images that would have been present in earlier versions of the set. This version of the Scriptural set is complete in that it has all twelve sliders with 38 images collectively. Like the set described in Carpenter & Westley’s catalogue, seven sliders are devoted to the Old Testament and five depict the life of Christ. While this set differs slightly from the one advertised in the Companion, it matches the images mentioned in William’s letter, for the image of Christ’s birth, his presentation at the temple, and the flight to Egypt are embedded in the wooden frames in this order, meaning that they could only be presented in the sequence that William’s described.
My goal is not necessarily to make a case for a particular set as the version that Williams used. Rather, presenting the scriptural set as a whole enables me to identify visual tropes that would have been shared by all Carpenter and Westley scriptural sets, including the one Williams may have used. The images in the scriptural set have no identifiable antecedent in print. While they may not be considered particularly well-executed, both in their drawing and colorization, they do draw from the rich visual vocabulary of typological tradition in religious painting and illustration. In this case, visual parallels between scenes from the New Testament and the Old Testament images convey the fulfillment of the covenant of works in the covenant of grace. It’s unclear if Williams had a complete set of sliders, since he omits any mention of stories from the Old Testament. I argue that the scenes from the Old Testament —whether they were present or absent in Williams’ lantern show —frame the set’s overall emphasis on covenant theology.
Click the link to the catalog to continue on this path or explore the material through the links below.
[1] John Williams, Letter to Samuel Williams, 7 February 1839. CWM/LMS/Personal Papers/ South Seas Personal/Box 2. Council for World Mission Archive, School of Oriental and African Studies Library, London, England. 30 June 2016.
