Abstract
Theatrical spectacles of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries played an important role as models in the formation of media culture. They provided scenographic inspiration for popular touring spectacles like peepshows, puppet shows, and ombres chinoises. A particularly interesting case was a spectacle known by many names, such as theatrum mundi, Mechanisches Theater, or Theatre of the Arts. Its formation took place in the eighteenth century, but its true era of prominence was the nineteenth century, when shows fitting such designation toured far and wide in Europe and the Americas. This chapter discusses the mechanical theater as a cultural form, probing its relationship to the legitimate theater and to parallel optical spectacles, such as dioramas and magic lantern shows, from which it appropriated features, and situates them within a genealogy of media cultures.
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Notes
- 1.
The full story will be told in my forthcoming book, tentatively titled “Théatre Morieux and the World of Mechanical-Optical Entertainments: A Media Archaeological Study.”
- 2.
Items such as magic lantern slides survive in private collections in Belgium and the Netherlands. Early silent films from Théatre Morieux were acquired and preserved at the Gaumont-Pathé Archives and the Fondation Jérôme Seydoux-Pathé, Paris.
- 3.
- 4.
One of the earliest known broadsides formulates it thus: “Theatre pittoresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von M. Morieux, dasselbe, welches 22 Jahre lang seine Vorstellungen zu Paris auf dem Boulevard du Temple gegeben hat.” (“…the same who gave presentations for 22 years along Boulevard du Temple”), broadside, no date (late 1850s?), printed by J. J. Fischer in Leipzig. Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig. I thank the museum for high resolution copies of the material on Théatre Morieux in its collection.
- 5.
“Notice sur les Origines du Grand Théatre Mécanique, Pittoresque, Maritime Morieux de Paris,” flyer, one page, undated (c. 1909). Jean-Paul Favand Collection, Paris (from now on: FC). A poster (FC) depicts a sea battle where an ironclad steamship is shooting at two rigged battleships. The text underneath says: “Thêatre mecanique. Morieux. 61 Boulevard du Temple. 61.” The poster was printed in Hamburg, which seems to have served as the winter quarters for Morieux and Van de Voorde in the 1850s and 1860s. No shows can be traced to 61 Boulevard du Temple. Does the poster prove that Morieux really performed in Paris or was it produced a posteriori to substantiate the myth about its origins? I still have no answer.
- 6.
The book mentions that Théatre Morieux did not appear again in Ghent until 1888. It was then under the direction of Jean Henri’s son Léon Van de Voorde, who had recently moved from Bremen to Belgium. I have not been able to verify Rousseau’s information.
- 7.
Jurkowski agrees: “All were known by the same title: ‘mechanician’. Little or nothing is known of most of them but they were many and their shows were more or less similar” (Jurkowski 1996, 350).
- 8.
A Pierre Morieux, born in the village of Condé-sur-Noireau in Calvados, Northern France, on July 5, 1794, may have been the founder of Théatre Morieux. Email from Fabien Gossart, Médiathèque de Condé-sur-Noireau, to Dominique Hebert, Musée des Arts Forains, November 4, 2009. The parents are listed as Pierre Morieux and Marie Bizet (Relevés Généalogiques de la Commune de Condé-sur-Noireau, B.M.S. 1793–1798, Réference 261D). A letter sent from Condé-sur-Noireau by “Mère Morieux” (likely Pierre Morieux’s widow Marie Morieux, born Vanet) to “Bien chers enfants” (probably Jean Henri Van de Voorde and his wife Henriette Falckenberg) on January 9, 1876, implies that Pierre Morieux had passed away. Marie was living with a sister, the only remaining local relative. This indicates that Marie may have been a native of Condé-sur-Noireau, although I have not managed to trace her.
- 9.
The spelling of the family name kept changing depending on country and family member.
- 10.
Visas granted by German authorities to Jean Henri have been preserved in FC. Similar information has been found from German archives.
- 11.
The surviving pavilion may be an extended and refurbished version of the one Léon constructed with Jean Henri around 1883–1884. Comparing surviving cabinet card photographs (FC) of both reveals similarities such as the double columns toward both ends of the façade.
- 12.
- 13.
Based mainly on British material, Brooks McNamara (1974) presented a classification of the scenography of popular entertainments. Théatre Morieux does not fit neatly within any of his categories. It was more sophisticated than “improvised theater,” an itinerant form. Its exhibitors were highly concerned of the quality of their presentations, and ended up being well-to-do bourgeoisie. Thanks to Vanessa Toulmin for pointing out this article.
- 14.
The description is mainly based on an official cabinet card photograph, stamped on the back “P. Geeraerts, 15, rue des Brasseurs, Châtelet.” Undated, c. 1900–1910. The personnel, nine men and three women, are posing on the parade.
- 15.
The arches at the left and right extremes of the façade were fake. The purpose of the spaces behind them is unclear. The details were modified from time to time.
- 16.
Many of the elements have been preserved in FC, but no instructions have been found about how to put it all together. I have made tentative efforts to reassemble the auditorium with the museum team.
- 17.
Many different illuminants have been preserved in FC.
- 18.
The estimate is based on the seats preserved at Musée des Arts Forains. In a newspaper announcement “Vorläufige Anzeige, Grosses mechanisches Theater ‘Morieux’” (source unknown, c. 1884, FC) Eugène Van de Voorde claimed that Théatre Morieux had room for 1000 people and was illuminated by 250 gas and electric lights. The figures cannot be trusted. The pavilions of Eugène and Léon were not necessarily identical.
- 19.
The drop curtain with its mechanism has been preserved in FC.
- 20.
“Explanation and Presentation of the mechanical theater of Mr. Morieux, a mechanic from Paris.” Printed by J. Gottsleben, Mainz, hand-dated (when?) “1857.”
- 21.
Cambon exhibited a moving panorama of Versailles in London in the early 1850s, so the information may be correct, although nothing else is known about the panorama in question. The moving panorama enjoyed high popularity in the 1850s.
- 22.
The broadside states: “painted by Mr. Cambon, mechanics by Mr. Morieux.” “Théatre pittoresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von M. Morieux,” broadside, Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
- 23.
Ibid. Ansichten à double effets. The text states that the technique was invented by Louis Daguerre. “Monsieur Philaster” was likely the Parisian scene painter Humanité-René Philastre, who collaborated with Cambon. Around 1838 they are said to have painted a panorama of Paris, which was exhibited in New Orleans in 1839. Philastre’s son Eugène Philastre (1827 or 1828–1886) also became a theatrical scene painter. David Karel, Dictionnaire des artistes de langue française en Amerique du Nord (Québec: Presses de l’Université de Laval 1992), p. 634. Cambon’s and Philastre’s presence in the program may point to Morieux’s connections in Paris.
- 24.
It is mentioned in the broadside Heute und folgende Tage während der Messe [Leipzig?] täglich drei Haupt-Vorstellungen in der eigends dazu erbauten großen, elegant decorirten und gegen jedes ungünstige Wetter geschützten Bude: Mechanisches Theater von M. Morieux, Mechanicus aus Paris, no date [post 1859], Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.
- 25.
The elements have been reconstructed at Musée des Arts Forains.
- 26.
An eyewitness report of a performance of Maelzel’s Burning of Moscow is quoted in The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (Philadelphia: The Good Companion Chess Problem Club), Vol. IV, Nos. 11–12 (May 11, 1917): 178.
- 27.
Photographic lantern slides began spreading in the 1850s (Huhtamo 2013, 275–276). Because of the depth of the stage, lantern slides may have been rear-projected on a translucent screen.
- 28.
Die neuerfundenen, durch Hydro-Oxygen Gas erleuchteten mechanischen Nebelbilder (“Recently invented, with oxy-hydrogen [limelight] illuminated dissolving views”). Heute und folgende Tage während der Messe. A pair of identical magic lanterns was probably used, because a biunial lantern (with two optical tubes in one lantern body) was a very recent invention. A magnificent dissolving lantern pair from Théatre Morieux is in a Dutch private collection, with spectacular large format slides. It is marked on a brass dissolver “H. J. Harting Bank” and carries hand-painted words “Pauer St.” and “Strass[en]. G[us],” possibly indicating the manufacturer of the lanterns’ wooden bodies. The lanterns seem from the 1870s to 1880s. Harting Bank was a philosophical instrument maker in Utrecht.
- 29.
Copies in FC, Bibliothèque nationale (BnF) Paris.
- 30.
The eruption began on April 26, 1872, and lasted for a few days. It destroyed some villages and killed 20 spectators.
- 31.
It is at the Musée des Arts Forains, and has been restored and exhibited. For the first few years Léon did not use the name Théatre Morieux, probably because his elder brother was touring with a theater carrying that name.
- 32.
In May 1886 Jean Henri received a letter from Kursk, Russia, from a showman named Edmond Peygnot. In broken French Peygnot asked Jean Henri to produce for him a “tableau” as well as a “drunken clown” and acrobatic automaton making tricks on the cloud swing, “like the one your son Eugène has.” Peygnot had written earlier, only to be told Jean Henri was too busy. If he had time now, Peygnot suggested, he could send an advance payment. He asked Jean Henri to make the mechanical figures sturdier, because the two acrobatic automata he had been exhibiting were “quite destroyed.” Edmond Peygnot to Jean Henri Van de Voorde from Kursk, “ville du gouvernement,” May 26, 1886 (FC).
- 33.
Léon called the conductor Hinko and the clown Chico. It became the latter’s task to lift one of the unnamed aeronautical pseudo-automata from the rope and carry it away. Léon’s booklets often localize the scene as Fantaisies Bruxelloises. Léon always stated that the “automates et acrobates gymnasiarques” had been invented and constructed by his beloved father (rather than by P. Morieux, as his brother Eugène had stated).
- 34.
“Die Erschaffung der Welt, nach der biblischen Geschichte in 14 Verwandlungen, belebt durch bewegliche Figuren und dazu sich eignende Beleuchtungs-Effecte.” “La création du monde” with the same description reappears in Léon’s later program booklet (printed in Namur, 1890s) in the section “Productions merveilleuses du Diophrama,” which at Théatre Morieux meant magic lantern slide projections. He may have inherited the slide set from Jean Henri or his brother Eugène, who had died in 1890.
- 35.
The musicians were not mentioned in the early booklets, but were always part of the show, as profuse correspondence preserved in FC demonstrates.
- 36.
A complete pencil sketch has been preserved in the Thomas Weynants Collection (Ronse, Belgium) and the panorama canvas itself in FC. Additional sources that may have been used were postcards Léon bought in Paris (FC), as well as stereoscopic photographs taken by Charles Buiron, the son of the wax museum owner Anatole Buiron, who was doing his apprentice at Théatre Morieux and accompanied Léon and his son Edmond to Paris (FC).
- 37.
It is signed by Gruber. There is correspondence about its creation and purchase (FC).
- 38.
Léon’s magnificent set of slides about Nansen’s expedition (made by Krüss, Hamburg), together with Théatre Morieux’s magic lantern pair for dissolving views, is in the collection of Martin Vliegenhardt, the Netherlands.
- 39.
Around 1894 Léon still exhibited an earlier traditional version. Elements of the electrical version have been preserved at Musée des Arts Forains.
- 40.
The notion mechanical theater or spectacle mécanique—another related term—sometimes referred to displays of automata or even to traditional string puppet theater.
- 41.
There is much literature about this topic, perhaps because von Kempelen’s chess player resonates with current debates about Artificial Intelligence and chess-playing computer programs trying to beat humans.
- 42.
Explanatory text to a lithograph depicting the Exeter Clock, printed by Hackett, Exeter 1833 (author’s collection). The lower part (the pedestal) opened to reveal a panoramic view of Exeter. The Exeter Clock is said to have been about eight feet tall. It was passed from one owner to another and still exhibited in the nineteenth century. It was destroyed in an aerial bombing in 1941 but remains were put on display at the Exeter City Museum in 2001 (they belong to the William Brown Street Museum, Liverpool). A history can be downloaded from www.lovelacetrust.org.uk/gallery/jacoblovelacesclocks.pdf (last accessed January 28, 2018).
- 43.
www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/tableau-anime-chateau-de-saint-ouen (last accessed January 25, 2018). The maker’s information has been engraved to the mechanism: “Desmares Machinistre [sic] Semtier St Jean Paris, 1759.” Chapuis and Droz could not decipher the maker’s name but published a photograph of the mechanism (Chapuis and Droz 1949, 153).
- 44.
Quotation from Goldovsky’s book in Russian (Moscow, 1994). I have not seen it.
- 45.
There is little focused research about Hellbrunn’s Mechanisches Theater. The most important source is Eduard Schnöll, “Funktionsanalyse des Mechanischen Theaters in Hellbrunn,” Diplomarbeit (unprinted), Institut für Feinwerktechnik der Technischen Universität Wien, 1978. I am grateful for Ingrid Sonvilla, Schlossverwaltung Hellbrunn, for providing me a copy. I did research in Hellbrunn in August 2013.
- 46.
Ibid., Chap. 2.1. Due to reparations over the years, the number of figures has somewhat varied. I was allowed to enter inside the mechanical theater through a doorway at the back. An old sign warns: Rauchen verboten!
- 47.
This hard-to-find exhibition catalog remains the main source about theatrum mundi. Link’s posthumous text was first published in 1961. Unfortunately, it is not annotated.
- 48.
This expression can be found from numerous German language broadsides for itinerant puppet theaters. (Mechanisches) Welttheater was an alternative expression.
- 49.
Pierre Boistuau’s Le theatre du monde, ou il est fait un ample discours des miseres humaines (Rouan: Theodore Reinsard, c. 1590 [1588]) discussed the miseries of human life. A German version (by Boistuau and Laurenz Rothmund) was titled Theatrum mundi, Das ist, Schauwplatz der Welt: Darinnen von ellend und arbeitseligkeit dess Menschen, durch alle und jede Alter und Stände menschliches Lebens gehandelt wird […] (Basel: Jacobum Trew, Jn verlegung Hans Conrads, 1607). Giovanni Paolo Gallucci applied the notion to celestial mechanics in his Theatrum mundi, et temporis (Venice: Giovanni Battista Somasco, 1588). A related notion was Theatrum historicum, which was used about history books.
- 50.
In Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Jonathan Swift used Lilliputians to satirize contemporary British society, presenting a kind of theatrum mundi.
- 51.
Lars Rebehn, the curator of the Puppentheatersammlung (the National Puppet Theater Collection) in the Museum für Sächsische Volkskunst in Dresden, agrees with this idea, as I found out when talking to him during my research stay in Dresden in May 2016.
- 52.
Some survived into the twentieth century, allowing Link to have first-hand experience of them. Link’s extensive collection is the origin of the Staatliche Puppentheatersammlung (Dresden). Some material ended up in the puppet theater collection of the Stadtsmuseum in Munich, which lost much of its holdings in the bombing raids of World War II. The curator Manfred Wegner graciously allowed me to study the latter resource.
- 53.
- 54.
According to Link (1984), a mechanical spectacle called Weltmachine oder Natürlichen Schauplatz der Welt was presented in the 1740s by Johann Ferdinand Beck, an itinerant actor turned marionettist. I have not been able to trace the source of Link’s information, but Beck is known to have added mechanical novelties to his presentations. About Beck, see Brandt and Hogendoorn (1993, 117).
- 55.
Johann Friedrich Schütze, Hamburgische Theatergeschichte (Hamburg: with author’s cost, printed by J. P. Treber, 1794). It has been claimed that theatrum mundi was invented by the mechanic Johann Samuel Brede in the beginning of the eighteenth century. See https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/234901 (last visited March 3, 2018). No hard evidence is provided.
- 56.
Les Affiches de Paris, Thursday, February 8, 1748 (author’s translation). I found the exact date from the original uploaded in www.gallica.fr. Reproduced in Campardon 1877, 434. Partial translation was published in April 1854 in “The Puppets of all Nations,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 75, 462: 392–413 (quot. p. 406).
- 57.
See their advertisement in Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, No. 34 (April 21, 1789); Pierre and Degabriel also announced bewegende Kunstbilder (moving paintings), which may have been the same thing or clockwork-operated mechanical paintings. They were advertised in the Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, No. 77 (Sept. 11, 1788). Stephan Oettermann’s privately produced broadside archive Ankündigungs-Zettel contains several program flyers from them (copy in the author’s collection).
- 58.
A nineteenth-century encyclopedia entry about Loutherbourg, reproduced numerous times in other encyclopedias, stated that “the invention of the Théatre mécanique et pittoresque realized by the artist Pierre has been attributed” to Loutherbourg. The original source may be Pierre Courtin, Encyclopédie moderne, ou dictionnaire abrégé des hommes et des choses, des sciences, des lettres et des arts, IIe ed. (Bruxelles: Th. Lejeune, 1830): 470.
- 59.
Ménard compares Loutherbourg’s presentation with Séraphin’s Ombres chinoises, which may be a misunderstanding. He gives no source, but the information can be found from an encyclopedia entry, which claims that his first experiments with théatre mecanique et pittoresque, since then perfected by Pierre, took place in Strasbourg in 1780. The entry claims that Séraphin’s shadow theater was based on Loutherbourg’s system, which is incorrect (Sitzmann 1910, 211).
- 60.
Toward the end of the period 1756–1763 Pierre is said to have applied for a permission to perform “mathematical arts” in Prague (Alice Dubská in Jakubcová (2007, 460–461). According to miscellaneous references, he may also have exhibited ombres chinoises.
- 61.
This was mentioned in several sources, for example, Le Journal des Sçavans (Paris), Vol. 1 (June 1780): 1133. Degabriel was described as a “Frenchman known for his talents in experimental physics.”
- 62.
Beschreibung der von den Herren Degabriel und Pierre Mechanikern in Strasburg verfertigten Luft-Maschine (Strasburg: Kurschnerische Buckdruckerei [1784]), 3). Pierre’s and Degabriel’s ascent has been discussed in detail by Fernand J. Heitz (1961, 88–97). Heitz had found no information about their origin or personality.
- 63.
Beschreibung der von den Herren Degabriel und Pierre Mechanikern in Strasburg verfertigten Luft-Maschine, 1784, 3.
- 64.
The first volume of Étienne-Gaspard Robertson’s Mémoires récreatifs, scientifiques et anecdotiques d’un physicien-aéronaute (Paris: chez l’auteur, 1831–1833) centered on Fantasmagorie, the second on his balloon experiments. On Robertson, see Levie (1990).
- 65.
Enslen made his attempts with his brother, the painter, Gottfried Christian Enslen. Unlike Degabriel and Pierre, he continued staging balloon stunts besides offering optical entertainments. In 1789 he released in Lübeck “colossal air filled figures” in the shape of animals, and the like (Becker 1805, 380). Like Pierre and Degabriel, Enslen was among the featured entertainers in Prague during the coronation festivities of Leopold II in 1791.
- 66.
Their balloon experiment was described in French and German in Kramp 1784, 230–233.
- 67.
See advertisements in Intelligenz-Blatt der freien Stadt Frankfurt, 76 (September 8, 1788), 9.
- 68.
“Avertissements, 1,” in Kurfürstlich gnädigst privilegiertes Müncher Wochen- und Intelligenzblatt, XLV (Nov. 5, 1789), 286. Pierre and Degabriel were still in Munich in late December. Their final presentation was announced for Sunday, December 27. The shows took place at the Schwarzen Adler, in the hall of Weingastgeber (inn owner) Mr. Albert. The place was said to be nicely decorated, well heated, and illuminated with wax lights. The seats were priced according to four categories, 1–3 Platz (rows of benches?) and behind them a gallery, probably for standing spectators. See ibid., No. LI (December 23, 1789), p. 324.
- 69.
Regenburgisches DIARIUM, Oder: Wochentliche Frag- und Anzeige Nachrichten, II (January 12, 1790), 12. Steinerne Brücke is Germany’s oldest surviving bridge still in use.
- 70.
The exhibitions were held next to the Duna-híd (Danube bridge) at Buda’s summer theater. Katalin Czibula, “A pest-budai német sajtó szinháztörténeti híradásai 1781–1790 között,” Magyar Könyvszemle, 111 évf., 1. szám (1995), pp. 34–35.
- 71.
Vollständiges Archiv der doppelten böhmischen Kronung Leopolds des Zweiten und Marien Louisens, Infantin von Spanien, in Prag im Jahre 1791. Prag und Leipzig: Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht [1791], 198–199.
- 72.
Krönungsjournal fur Prag: Siebentes Stück. Prag: Johann Friedrich Ernst Albrecht [1791], 414.
- 73.
It is possible, because of Degabriel’s involvement with the invention of the Argand lamp. It was an improved oil lamp that became the standard light source for professional magic lanterns, including those used in phantasmagoria.
- 74.
According to Schütze, Degabriel’s demonstrations were inferior to those of the Italian Taschenspieler (conjurer) Professor Pinetti, who had performed at the Drillhause in Hamburg in 1789 (1794, 106).
- 75.
Kiobenhavn: Der Kongelige Wansenhuses Bogtryggerie, Carl Friderich Schubart, 1795. I thank Det Kongelige Bibliothek, Copenhagen, for making me a copy of this rare book. The word Skuespil seems to come directly from Pierre and Degabriel who sometimes used Schauspiel (play, theater piece) about their spectacle.
- 76.
There is little information about Pierre’s and Degabriel’s performances from 1793 onward. A list of entertainers who had performed in Kiel, compiled much later, includes “Pierre, Degabriel und Saphir, Physiker und Mechaniker, Oct. und Nov. [17]94.” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für kieler Stadt, issue 27 (1911), 326. Kiel: Verlag von Lipsius & Tischer. Is this an error or did the aging showmen partner with a third person? Degabriel is said to have exhibited in Warsaw in 1795. Pierre was not mentioned (Waszkiel 1990, 87).
- 77.
According to a medical doctor from Warsaw who had treated Degabriel, his death was caused by heart failure. It had had happened “a couple of years ago” (Wolff 1804, 17). Did Degabriel retire in Warsaw? In 1801, Pierre is said to have applied for a permission to settle down in Vienna (Dubská 2007). See also “Pierre, Jean-Claude” in Česká divadelní encyklopedie (Czech theater encyclopedia), online at http://encyklopedie.idu.cz/index.php/Pierre, Jean-Claude (last accessed February 26, 2018).
- 78.
In a letter to the mayor (of Paris?), dated September 11, 1809, Pierre asked to be released from being conscripted to “the guard” (la garde) because of his age. He specified that he was born on May 7, 1739, and was then 70 years old. The petition was accepted. Collection de manuscrits d’Auguste Rondel, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. A document in the Rondel collection suggests Pierre’s birthplace was the village of Herny near Dieuze (Lorrain).
- 79.
The theater was at the intersection of rue du Port-Mahon, rue de la Michodière, and rue Gaillon. The address was given in different ways over the years, including Rue Neuve de la Fontaine, which referred to the fountain of Louis-le-Grand at the intersection. As the author has tested, the theater was quite a walk away from Boulevard du Temple but much closer to Palais-Royal, another nexus of entertainments (Séraphin’s Ombres chinoises was there.).
- 80.
Calvel 1804. “Théatre Pittoresque et Mécanique de M. Pierre.” Courrier des Spectacles, January 10 (no. 2507), 2. Several notices about Pierre’s theater appeared in 1803–1804.
- 81.
Programme des pièces qui se donnent aujourd’hui et jours suivants (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris). By 1812, the ticket prices had been lowered to 3 fr, 2 fr., and 1 fr. (Tynna 1812, 433).
- 82.
A handwritten document in the Auguste Rondel collection at Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, confirms this. Under the letterhead of the administrator of Theatre de Pierre it talks about the visit a group of notables, including Duc de Berry, Duc and Duchesse d’Orleans, and so on, had made to the theater. The letter was no doubt meant as press material. 4-NRO-386 (2).
- 83.
V. A. 1803. “Pierre’s optisches und mechanisches Theater in Paris.” In Minerva, Vol. IV, No. XII, 565–567. Hamburg. The writer says that many publications, including German, have praised Pierre’s theater without knowing that he had already performed in Hamburg in 1793, “during the entire summer.” The writer praises Pierre’s spectacle, saying Ombres Chinoises is “child’s play” compared with it, but wonders how something that had been seen in Germany for a decade could be considered “something very new,” unique dans son genre, in Paris (p. 567). According to the writer, Pierre was an ignorant person, who had come to the possession of his theater by chance and did not fully understand its value until a learned person named Courant told him about it in Hamburg (ibid.).
- 84.
- 85.
Programme DES PIÈCES qui se donnent aujourd’hui et jours suivans, à 7 heures et demie précises, AU THÉATRE PITTORESQUE ET MECANIQUE, RUE NEUVE DE LA FONTAINE […], do date (pre.1814), Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, available via Gallica.org.
- 86.
The information comes from handwritten notes attached to a few manuscripts about Pierre’s theater, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, collection Auguste Rondel, 4-NRO-386 (1–3). It is said the theater re-opened under the new direction on December 1, 1821. “After being closed for a long time it opened again May 29, 1824 under the direction of Vanhoestenberghe and Courtois, whose program included mechanical pieces, [demonstrations of] physics and phantasmagoria. It was re-named Spectacle de Nouveauté de physique amusante.” “Spectacle de physique amusante (Passage Montesquieu)” can be found from a list of weekly opening hours of attractions, in G. Harmand (1824), before page 1 (probably inserted as a last minute addition). Théatre Pittoresque et mécanique de M. Pirrre [sic] is still included in the list of theaters (294–295), which indicates that the transition of ownership was recent.
- 87.
However, Almanach des Spectacles Pour 1829 (Paris: Barba 1828, 240–241) also still listed Pierre’s theater. Had it made a comeback by its original name?
- 88.
His full name was Charles Dromal (also written Dromale). He is said to have begun his career as an exhibitor of tightrope acts in Versailles before moving to Boulevard du Temple in 1809, where his show was called Théatre des Pygmées, or Spectacle du Monde en Miniature. It was to the left from Madame Saqui’s Spectacle des Acrobates (No. 62), probably at No. 58, where Théatre du Petit-Laz(z)ari was opened some years later. John McCormick (1993, 59) claims that Dromale had exhibited on the boulevard since the 1790s, referring to Paul Ginisty (1925, 41). This is unlikely. Théatre des Pygmées is said to have started its operations on the Boulevard du Temple around 1811 by Gourdon de Genouillac (1893, 409).
- 89.
The show had been closed for years, or Dromal may have reintroduced it. According to McCormick, Pierre’s spectacle also became a reference point for itinerant puppeteers who were applying for a permit: “They would often describe their shows as being ‘after the manner of Citizen Pierre’” (1993, 59).
- 90.
Another source spoke about théatre de la galerie du Panorama cosmo-mechanicos. Tableaux with mechanical effects were exhibited by the owner, M. Henri, who may have been the famous British magician and exhibitor (Annales du barreau français […] 1823, 531–532).
- 91.
Online at www.memoireetactualite.org (last visited July 16, 2013).
- 92.
Back in Paris, an announcement promoting the Spectacle instructif de M. Robertson listed the following program: “fantasmagorie, théatre pittoresque et mécanique, machine parlante et trompette mécanique” (Le moniteur universel 9 August 1815, 888).
- 93.
Herr Conus, no date [1820]. Mit hoher Bewilligung. THEATRE PITTORESQUE und unterhaltendes physicalishes Cabinett. Broadside, Vienna: Vienna Library Collection, online at www.digital.wienbibliothek.at (last visited February 27, 2018). Other broadsides from Conus are in the same collection. The library dates all 1828, probably by relying on information from other sources. When Conus exhibited in Augsburg in 1824, he called his spectacle Bewegliches Panorama und physikalishes Cabinet (Moving panorama and physical cabinet) des herrn Conus, but still mentioned it as an improvement of “de Gabrielle’s and Pierre’s” invention. It was clearly a mechanical theater rather than a moving panorama proper. Several broadsides have been reproduced in Oettermann (2003, nos 1700–1707). Conus also performed “physical” experiments and magic tricks.
- 94.
Messrs. Le Fort and Company. 1816. “Mechanical Exhibition! From Paris.” Broadside, Paris: Sans Pareil Theatre, The Strand, April 8–13 (Oxford: John Johnson Collection, Bodleian Library).
- 95.
Encyclopedia Londinensis1821, 484–485. The article mentions a presentation at Sans Pareil, probably meaning Le Fort’s appearance in 1816 (see previous note). According to the article, Pierre’s spectacle did not receive in London the attention it deserved. Too numerous imitations of Eidophusikon may have already been seen.
- 96.
Much like at Théatre Morieux, the direction was passed on in the family to the next generation. Jean-François’ assistant Thomas Henry Aspinall, who married his daughter, became the director. Under the name Aspinall Thiodon he took the spectacle to America and Australia. See Bradshaw 2007.
- 97.
Writing the history of the mechanical theater is a huge task and beyond the scope of my book on Théatre Morieux. Suzanne Wray has traced histories of Messrs. Maffey and José Vilallave, who was probably Cuban and began his career as a rope dancer before becoming a mechanical theater exhibitor. Vilallave may have attended Pierre’s spectacle in Paris (see illustration).
- 98.
Their complicated chronology (still unprinted) has been put together by fellow media archaeologist Suzanne Wray, who has shared it with me. Felix-François-Benoit Maffey was married to Henriette-Sophie Cramer, who came from another show family.
- 99.
Mentioned, among several other known sources, in NY Evening Post, June 17, 1818.
- 100.
In 1830, the “Spectacle mécanique du Petit Lazari” was described as a “species of puppet show, suited to amuse the lower ranks and children. The puppets undergo various transformations by means of mechanism.” (Galignani 1830, 562).
- 101.
Information from Suzanne Wray’s Messrs. Maffey chronology (author’s archive).
- 102.
Large quantities of letters from local municipal authorities as well as drafts of letters sent to them by Léon have been preserved in FC.
- 103.
See www.invaluable.co.uk/auction-lot/thiodon-s-mechanical-and-picturesque-theatre-of-the.arts/ (last accessed February 27, 2018).
- 104.
One of them survives, together with a group of other mechanical figures created by Tschggmall, in the Puppentheatersammlung, München Stadtmuseum.
- 105.
See Oettermann 2003, vol. 5 no. 1208 (Tendler, also with “Chinese optical firework,” no doubt feux pyriques); vol. 6 no. 1740–1742 (Tendler); vol. 7 no. 2051 (Tendler 1817); 2048–2049 (Buchner 1818, 1819).
- 106.
Schelesische Provinzialblätter, March 1794, 306. The article mentioned similar figures had been copied from Enslen by the master mason Johann Müller from Trebnitz.
- 107.
“Positively the Last Ten Nights of Maelzel’s Conflagration of Moscow!” newspaper announcement, Montreal, Canada, hand-dated July 1847, reproduced in The Good Companion Chess Problem Club (vol. IV, 11–12), May 11, 1917, 180. Philadelphia: The Good Companion Chess Problem Club. The owner was Mr. P. L. Zaionczek. In the United States mechanical theaters were often advertised as “mechanical panoramas” or “mechanical dioramas.”
- 108.
Reproduced in ibid., 1917, 179.
- 109.
Both Théatre Morieux and its competitor, Grosses Mechanisches Theater oder: Theatre des Arts, exhibited by J. Flutiaux “from Paris,” were soon staging it. Morieux promoted Die frei in der Luft schlafende Dame in “Théatre pittoresque maritime et mécanique aus Paris von M. Morieux,” broadside, no date (after 1850), Stadtgeschichtliches Museum Leipzig. Flutiaux stated that the hovering body belonged to “Mademoiselle Flutiaux” (Nürnberger Beobachter, September 15, 1853, 440. Woodcut included). Morieux’s levitating lady was described as a sleeping Greek maiden. M. Herrmann from Hanover brought it to the Theatre Royal Hay-Market, London, April 17–22, 1848. Broadside in Evanion, British Library, online at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/evanion/Record.aspx?EvanID=024-000000428&ImageIndex=0
- 110.
Letter from Anatole Buiron (Remoiville) to Léon Van de Voorde (Ghent), August 11, 1898 (FC).
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Acknowledgments
I am in eternal gratitude for Jean-Paul Favand for his support and encouragement, which has made my research of Théatre Morieux possible. The entire team of the Musée des Arts Forains (Paris Bercy) has helped me. Suzanne Wray has shared ideas and sources about mechanical theaters for years. Without Nele Wynants’ invitation and persistence this article would never have been finished. Thomas Weynants has helped in many ways; it was from Thomas that I first learned about mechanical theaters. Last but not least, Lars Rebehn (Dresden), Manfred Wegner (Munich), and Ingrid Sonvilla (Salzburg) gave me access to important resources.
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Huhtamo, E. (2019). Mechanisms in the Mist: A Media Archaeological Excavation of the Mechanical Theater. In: Wynants, N. (eds) Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance. Avant-Gardes in Performance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99576-2_2
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