Cosmo-Raree

François Binétruy Collection,^[1] #FB-26-02.

French, ca.1850

Dimensions: H= cm, W= cm, D= cm

Lens: ⌀= cm, ƒ= cm

 

Figure FB-26-02.1 –Cosmo-Raree
Source: François-Louis Lanfant de Metz, ca. 1850, Oil painting, François Binétruy Collection.

Figure FB-26-02.2 –Cosmorama Mechanism
Source: Clarke, William. The Boy's Own Book; a Complete Encyclopædia of All the Diversions ... Of Boyhood and Youth. London: W. Kent & Company, 1859..

This is a mashup between a Cosmorama and a Raree Show. It is an example of an “optical machine ” and is included in the Optical Machine Taxonomy as one of three genuses of the cosmorama family.

 

Raree Shows had multiple lenses looking onto the same image and that image could be changed by raising and lowering different pictures in to the viewing area by means of pull-strings. In this device, the pull-strings run from the operator's position across five rails – one for each viewing-station. From the rail they run down to where they attach to image-frames. The images at each station can be changed by this means. But each station has its own image – that is the defining feature of a cosmorama.

 

 

 

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