MISC Moving Panoramas!

This section is for new moving panoramas and related hand-cranked, scrolling "things" that have come to my attention. 🙂 While I am reorganizing the website, I am storing them here so they do not get lost. In the meantime, you can enjoy them. Cheers!

1853 Moving Panorama of Niagra Falls painted by Godfrey Frankenstein

Sadly, Frankenstein's moving panorama did not survive. This is one of his paintings of the Falls which gives us a glimpse of what the moving panorama might have looked like.

Godfrey Frankenstein, a 19th century painter, was fascinated with the majesty of Niagra Falls.  He made numerous trips to the Falls over a nine year period, making over 200 paintings and sketches.  Then, he created the moving panorama which was approximately 12' high and 1600' in length.  It turned out to be a great success on Broadway and beyond.

Fast forward to the 21st century, Richard C. Douglas, a native of Niagra Falls, with a background in film, spents several year researching the painting and moving panorama history in general.  He created the YouTube video below. Thank you Richard! Watch below and enjoy!

The Flipposcoop - 1930s

The  Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the National Library of the Netherlands, recently purchased a toy moving panorama from the 1930s, The Flipposcoop.

The main character of the story is Flipje van Tiel, the beloved mascot of a jam factory. He was featured in several collectables children could buy with savings stamps. Watch the video below!

Sincere thanks and gratitude to The Koninklijke Bibliotheek for making this available to the public and adding English subtitles! Visit their website: www.kb.nl

From India, The Bioscopewallah
The bioscopewallah combines the hand-cranked, scrolling paper images in a peep show box. Thank you to John Plunkett of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum for sending this to me. This will be the subject of a new webpage (at some point) as there are other examples of this combination. One is from the book "Illusions in Motion" from Erkki Huhtamo and also "Paper Peepshows" by Ralph Hyde. (Nov. 20, 2019)

Scenes from the Life of Christ -  A 525 foot, 19th century moving panorama. It is believed to be painted by Marcus Mote, a self-taught artist and is housed at the Krannart Art Museum at the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana.

Molly Briggs is writing her dissertation on panoramic media and was recently involved in a partial "unrolling" of the canvas along with media archeologists Erkki Hutamo and Machiko Kusahara. Read more about it here.

Edison Bell Picturegram
An Edison Bell Picturegram (1924) from the collection of Mario Franzzetto. Thank you Mario for filming and sharing. Check out his website! phonographsandgramophones.com
This movie clip features a revolving drop behind the carriage window.
This 1893 patent of a hand-cranked, scrolling, advertising wagon came to me from Prof. Russell Potter, moving panorama historian, historian of 19th century Arctic explorations and Professor of English at Rhode Island College. Thank you!

This page was created in 2016, updated in 2019 and 2022. Sue Truman ❤