Paris Opera Costume Sketches – 19th Century

A collection of more than 40 original hand painted watercolor and gouache on paper costume illustrations, circa mid-nineteenth century, created chiefly by Paris Opera costume designer Alfred Albert. The costumes depicted are primarily from the Goignard brothers production of “La Biche au Bois,” which was a popular French fairy tale (or feerie) involving mystical realms, including an underwater kingdom populated with anthropomorphic sea creatures. The collection is housed in a typical late 19th century era scrapbook album and unfortunately suffers from severe foxing and discoloration due to acid and other impurities in the papers and chemical reactions with the glue used to secure the sheets to the scrapbook.

Les Diableries – 3D Visions of Hell from The 19th Century

With Halloween coming up I was reminded of a series of devilish photographs that I researched and wrote about years ago called Les Diableries. They were created in France in the mid-19^th century and they depict various scenes of life in Hell. Not only that but these images are “stereoscopic” meaning when you look at them with special lenses they appear in 3D! I got to be one of the first people to publish a modern detailed history of these images and the artists who created them, and I also wrote the Wikipedia entry for them. A couple of years after my publication another group of researchers, including Brian May (astrophysicist and lead guitarist for the rock band Queen), published their own book on the series.

Les Diableries: 3D Visions of Hell – A History