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Astounding Apparition!

Photograph
c.1860 (made)
Artist/Maker
Laroche, Martin

Anon. 'Astouding Apparition !' (ghost photography), c.1860

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Object details

Category
Photographs
Object type
Photograph
TitleAstounding Apparition! (popular title)
Materials and techniques
Stereoscopic photograph
Card
Photography
Brief description
Anon. 'Astouding Apparition !' (ghost photography), c.1860
Dimensions
  • Size of card height: 8.2cm
  • Width: 17.5cm
Gallery label
Making It Up: Photographic Fictions (2018)
Marta Weiss

Stereographs were produced in vast quantities and depicted a great range of subjects, from the educational to the absurd. At the humorous end of the spectrum were novelties such as stuffed frogs playing pool, supernatural tableaux and cartoonish domestic scenes.
Label for 'Making It Up: Photographic Fictions' (3 May 2013 - 12 January 2014):

Probably John Reynolds
The Angel's Whisper
James Elliott (1835–1903)
Mary Queen of Scots. A Prisoner
Unknown photographers
The Captive
Woman selling apples from a basket
Probably Martin Laroche (1810–86)
Astounding Apparition!
Unknown photographer
Frogs playing pool and smoking clay pipes
About 1860
A stereograph is a pair of photographic images of the same subject taken from slightly different angles. This gives the illusion of a three-dimensional image when viewed through a stereoscope. These optical devices occupied a place in the drawing room, as a television might today, providing entertainment that was both amusing and instructive. Stereographs were the most popular outlet for staged and narrative photography in the 19th century.

Stereographs
Museum nos. 107, 113, 124, 127, 147-1957, 679-1943
Subjects depicted
Stereoscopes
Stereograph
Collection
Prints, Drawings & Paintings Collection
Accession number
113-1957

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Record createdJune 30, 2009
Record URL
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1044782/astounding-apparition-photograph-laroche-martin/
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