![CINEMATOGRAPHIC CAMERA, 1899/1900 [?]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2001/CSK/2001_CSK_09217_0022_000(032734).jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Alfred Darling (1862-1931) of Hove, West Sussex, England, was one of the earliest pioneers of film technology. He produced cameras for James Williamson, G.A Smith, Charles Urban and many other pioneers of the British film-making scene in the late Victorian and early Edwardian period.
George Albert Smith (1864-1959) was Charles Urban's closest collaborator. In the early 1880s he developed a hypnotism act in Brighton which purported to demonstrate 'second sight'. His act came to the attention of the Society for Psychical Research, for whom he conducted many bogus experiments, becoming private secretary to its honorary secretary Edmund Gurney. From 1892 he ran a pleasure garden in Brighton, then in 1896/7 became interested in cinematography and started making inovative trick films. He became a film processor and undertook work for the Warwick Trading Company. In 1903, at Urban's invitation, he carried on Edward R. Turner's experiments in colour cinematography, and in 1906 patented Kinemacolor. Kinemacolor brought Smith great acclaim and a silver medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts. He quarrelled with Urban after he sold his rights in Kinemacolor, believing that Urban had cheated him, while Urban believed Smith had sold colour secrets to his rivals. They were reconciled only when Urban moved to Brighton in 1938. A remarkable man of varied talents, Smith's highly inventive trick films are now some of the most admired of their period.
Many parts of camera are stamped with the AD logo. This model appears to be made chiefly for export, while the film counter calibrated in metres and the film punch marked 'TIREZ' suggests a mainly French market.
The most interesting fact about this camera is that the gate will accept removeable aperture plates or 'matte plates' and that the two spare plates have survived with the camera.
In 1899 G.A. Smith purchased a camera from Alfred Darling. Some months later he shot the important narrative film Grandma's Reading Glass, which famously includes shots of an eye looking through a magnifying glass: the shots are framed with a circular mask. The Warwick Trading Company's catalogue for April 1901 described it thus:
Grandma is seen at work at her sewing-table, while her little grandson is playfully handling her reading-glass, focussing same on various objects, viz., a newspaper, his watch, the canary, grandma's eye, and the kitten, which objects are shown in abnormal size on the screen when projected. The conception is to produce on the screen the
various objects as they appeared to Willy while looking through the
glass in their enormously enlarged form. The big print on the
newspaper, the visible working of the mechanism of the watch, the
fluttering of the canary in the cage, the blinking of grandma's eye,
and the inquisitive look of the kitten, is most amusing to behold. The novelty of the subject is sure to please every audience.
John Barnes suggests that these and similarly masked shots in another Smith film, Through a Telescope, were all filmed in 1900 using a circular matte in the camera.
The existance of this Alfred Darling camera with a circular special effect plate (with a cut-out identical in size to the one used to make the early special effects films) strongly suggests that this was the same type of camera he used for filming Grandma's Reading Glass and Through a Telescope.
There are some clues to the technical history of this camera. Subsequent to early use as a conventional camera it was modified for other uses. Filled slots at the back of the case suggest that it may have been used as a printer at some time, though these may equally suggest use as a rostrum camera with more convenient external magazines. Certainly the presence of a tripod bush on top of the camera body, in order for the artwork to be shot the right way up, assume a conventional forward movement of the film.
Many external fittings have been subsequently removed and the holes filled in. The nameplate on the front has also been removed, which could have been original or one supplied by Kinomatograph Exchange Co, a company that recycled many early cameras in the 1920s and frequently added their own nameplate
The Alfred Darling aperture plates fitted to the camera are probably the earliest-known surviving motion picture camera effects (mattes). Almost certainly, they are identical to the earliest designs by Darling, possibly the first aperture effect mattes ever made.
George Albert Smith (1864-1959) was Charles Urban's closest collaborator. In the early 1880s he developed a hypnotism act in Brighton which purported to demonstrate 'second sight'. His act came to the attention of the Society for Psychical Research, for whom he conducted many bogus experiments, becoming private secretary to its honorary secretary Edmund Gurney. From 1892 he ran a pleasure garden in Brighton, then in 1896/7 became interested in cinematography and started making inovative trick films. He became a film processor and undertook work for the Warwick Trading Company. In 1903, at Urban's invitation, he carried on Edward R. Turner's experiments in colour cinematography, and in 1906 patented Kinemacolor. Kinemacolor brought Smith great acclaim and a silver medal awarded by the Royal Society of Arts. He quarrelled with Urban after he sold his rights in Kinemacolor, believing that Urban had cheated him, while Urban believed Smith had sold colour secrets to his rivals. They were reconciled only when Urban moved to Brighton in 1938. A remarkable man of varied talents, Smith's highly inventive trick films are now some of the most admired of their period.
Many parts of camera are stamped with the AD logo. This model appears to be made chiefly for export, while the film counter calibrated in metres and the film punch marked 'TIREZ' suggests a mainly French market.
The most interesting fact about this camera is that the gate will accept removeable aperture plates or 'matte plates' and that the two spare plates have survived with the camera.
In 1899 G.A. Smith purchased a camera from Alfred Darling. Some months later he shot the important narrative film Grandma's Reading Glass, which famously includes shots of an eye looking through a magnifying glass: the shots are framed with a circular mask. The Warwick Trading Company's catalogue for April 1901 described it thus:
Grandma is seen at work at her sewing-table, while her little grandson is playfully handling her reading-glass, focussing same on various objects, viz., a newspaper, his watch, the canary, grandma's eye, and the kitten, which objects are shown in abnormal size on the screen when projected. The conception is to produce on the screen the
various objects as they appeared to Willy while looking through the
glass in their enormously enlarged form. The big print on the
newspaper, the visible working of the mechanism of the watch, the
fluttering of the canary in the cage, the blinking of grandma's eye,
and the inquisitive look of the kitten, is most amusing to behold. The novelty of the subject is sure to please every audience.
John Barnes suggests that these and similarly masked shots in another Smith film, Through a Telescope, were all filmed in 1900 using a circular matte in the camera.
The existance of this Alfred Darling camera with a circular special effect plate (with a cut-out identical in size to the one used to make the early special effects films) strongly suggests that this was the same type of camera he used for filming Grandma's Reading Glass and Through a Telescope.
There are some clues to the technical history of this camera. Subsequent to early use as a conventional camera it was modified for other uses. Filled slots at the back of the case suggest that it may have been used as a printer at some time, though these may equally suggest use as a rostrum camera with more convenient external magazines. Certainly the presence of a tripod bush on top of the camera body, in order for the artwork to be shot the right way up, assume a conventional forward movement of the film.
Many external fittings have been subsequently removed and the holes filled in. The nameplate on the front has also been removed, which could have been original or one supplied by Kinomatograph Exchange Co, a company that recycled many early cameras in the 1920s and frequently added their own nameplate
The Alfred Darling aperture plates fitted to the camera are probably the earliest-known surviving motion picture camera effects (mattes). Almost certainly, they are identical to the earliest designs by Darling, possibly the first aperture effect mattes ever made.