Nuremberg chronicles - Dance of Death (CCLXIIIIv)

''Les Diableries'' is the title of a series of stereoscopic photographs published in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

during the 1860s. The photographs, commonly known as stereoviews, portray sculpted

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...

vignettes Vignette may refer to: * Vignette (entertainment), a sketch in a sketch comedy * Vignette (graphic design), decorative designs in books (originally in the form of leaves and vines) to separate sections or chapters * Vignette (literature), short, i ...

which depict scenes of daily life in Hell. Much of the subject matter was satirical and mirrored the corruption and excess of Paris during the

Second Empire Second Empire may refer to: * Second British Empire, used by some historians to describe the British Empire after 1783 * Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1396) * Second French Empire (1852–1870) ** Second Empire architecture, an architectural styl ...

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

's authoritarian rule was repeatedly the subject of criticism, as was the

decadent The word decadence, which at first meant simply "decline" in an abstract sense, is now most often used to refer to a perceived decay in standards, morals, dignity, religious faith, honor, discipline, or skill at governing among the members of ...

lifestyle of the bourgeoisie.

Creation and publication

At least three sculptors are known to have created vignettes for the series: Louis Alfred Habert, Pierre Adolph Hennetier, and Louis Edmond Cougny. The series was originally published by Francois Benjamin Lamiche but was later taken over and expanded by the publisher Adolph Block. A total of 72 scenes were published by Block. Many similar stereoviews, though of lesser quality, were subsequently published by a competitor of Adolph Block's named Jules Marinier.

Construction

The photographs were reverse colored by hand, then backed with a layer of tissue paper and sandwiched between two double window cardboard mattes. This format of stereoview is known as a "tissue view" or "hold-to-light view" and is similar to modern day slides or transparencies. For added effect, the eyes of the skeletons and various other creatures were pierced and dabbed with colored gelatin, causing their eyes to glow red.Simonova-Bulat, Elena; ''Conservation Issues of Paper Stereo Transparencies'' The final product was then viewed through a

stereoscope A stereoscope is a device for viewing a stereoscopic pair of separate images, depicting left-eye and right-eye views of the same scene, as a single three-dimensional image. A typical stereoscope provides each eye with a lens that makes the ima ...

which produced a realistic 3D effect.

References

External links

London Stereoscopic Company
Les Diableries: Image Samples
Stereoscopic photography

Creation and publication

Construction

References

Further reading

External links