Magic lantern - The Lord's Prayer.

The Lord's Prayer.

The Lord's Prayer is undoubtedly the best-known prayer in Christianity. At the right a magic lantern slide mounted in a standard 4" x 7" mahogany frame. The words of the prayer are represented on the 3.5" x 4" rectangular glass slide. Below a very special set of magic lantern slides illustrating the texts by magnificent images. The slides measure 3,25" x 4" (c. 8 x 10 cm).







Though most sets of magic lantern slides consist of an even number, often eight or twelve, this is a complete set of seven glass magic lantern slides on the "Lord's Prayer." At least two of these slides were drawn by the famous American magic lantern slide artist Joseph Boggs Beale, living 1841-1926. We know this because they are signed by Beale but his signatures are always very hard to spot, even with a magnifying glass, so possibly there are more made by him. The slides are all beautifully drawn and hand-tinted but someway they are unusual and not really connected to each other. It looks like the publisher used some existing pictures and combined them to this set. Beale worked in the army as a regimental artist and supplied drawings from the field to various magazines for publication. After his marriage he worked as a book illustrator. Unfortunately, he lost the majority of his work during the Chicago fire of October 1871, after which Beale and his wife moved back to Philadelphia. He found commercial work with the Frank Harris Lithography Company and as a magic lantern slide illustrator for Caspar W. Briggs, one of Philadelphia's early glass slide dealers. Beale created hundreds of magic lantern slides later in his career and illustrated everything from Bible stories and morality tales to children's stories and popular songs and poems. Many of his magic lantern slide drawings were discovered after his death and were presumably dispersed into the hands of museums and private collectors.