Girl with a Magic Lantern

Girl with a Magic LanternUntil 1880 attributed to Chardin. The magic lantern or 'Laterna Magica' is an early type of image projector invented in the late 16th century, where translucent painted slides were lit up and magnified by a concave mirror reflecting the light of a candle or lamp. This popular form of entertainment was often featured in travelling fairs and used to create supernatural illusions such as images of the devil, phantoms, or ghosts. It is effectively one of

Attributed to Annibale Carracci until 1880

her left hand gently caressing Rinaldo's golden curls and hand

courtesan and historical figure

Armida proceeds to kill Rinaldo

This means that the original viewer would have gazed at a familiar world and seen a familiar-looking girl gazing back

full of armour and military paraphernalia

on the right

which tells how Jacob tricked his dying father

An early copy of Van Dyck's original in the Royal Collection

Philippe Jaques De Loutherbourg (1740-1812) was a French landscape painter and scenic designer who settled in London in 1771

hence his association with the gridiron

Overwhelmed by love