The Diorama in Great Britain in the 1820s by R. Derek Wood

First published in the quarterly journal History of Photography, Autumn 1993 (Vol 17, #3 pp. 284-295), this online version appears with the kind permission of Taylor & Francis Ltd London

PART I : BRITISH RIVALS OF THE DIORAMA DURING 1825

Edinburgh, January 1825

Later it will be seen that an authentic Diorama building was erected in Lothian Road, Edinburgh, at the end of 1827. But there had also been an event almost three years earlier regarding an exhibition of a 'diorama' painting in Edinburgh that was not part of that venture to bring Daguerre's work to Great Britain.

When pictures were hung for the annual Modern Art exhibition ¹² of the Institution for the Encouragement of the Fine Arts in Scotland ¹³ ready for its opening day at the begining of March 1825 at 24 Waterloo Place in Edinburgh, they took the place of a 'diorama from London'. Its title was 'Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral' and had been on view for a month, until 19 February. ¹⁴ It was the same title as Bouton's diorama that had been at the London Diorama until the previous August and was the tableax for the opening show (note the exact date) at a new building in Liverpool on Monday 21 February 1825! ¹⁵

It would be difficult, assuming we only had knowledge of these dates,to see how that picture exhibited in Edinburgh could be the same as Bouton's diorama opening in Liverpool two days later. Indeed there is evidence that the diorama in Edinburgh was not produced in France: "this picture is painted, in part, by a native of this city". It was certainly a large painting, but although it was exhibited in the largest of the rooms at the Waterloo Place galleries it is difficult to see how it could have approached the 80 by 50 feet of Bouton's diorama. It surely must have been exhibited simply as a painting without the various contrivances required to produce the dioramic lighting effects and illusions. A somewhat partisan reviewer in the Caledonian Mercury ¹⁶ provides a report requiring our attention:

'We regret, as this picture is painted, in part, by a native of this city, that, from its extraordinary size, it cannot form part of the National Exhibition, as it would have shone conspicuously among the many brilliant efforts of native talent which we hope to see displayed...And we are glad to find although it has not to boast of the borrowed name of a French artist to procure it visitors, that its own merits and distinguished reputation have ensured its success; and we understand, such is the stimulus given to this young artist, that he is engaged in bringing out, shortly, a View of Holyrood Chapel by Moonlight, and the Interior of Rosslyn Chapel; for the exhibition of which an appropriate building will be erected.'

No evidence is available for the identity of the 'native of this city' who had painted, in part, the 'diorama' of January 1825 titled and who seems to have been planning to later paint dioramas showing 'Holyrood Chapel' and 'Rosslyn Chapel'. But, after first considering an even more significant episode that took place later in 1825, it will be seen that the then scene painter David Roberts, born in Edinburgh in 1796, is a possible candidate. A second episode again concerns rivalry with the proprietors of the London Diorama. Although it is a source of some confusion, a resolution of its contradictions could ultimately lead to a re-orientation of knowledge about the relationship of the Diorama in England with Daguerre and Bouton in Paris.

Bristol Fair of September 1825

Bristol was well known for an annual Fair of trade and entertainment held for about 2 weeks starting every 1 September. That month in 1825 a Diorama exhibition took place. Advertisements in two local Bristol newspapers ¹⁸, referred to the exhibition of a pair of dioramas 'for a short time in a spacious building purposely erected in St. James's Church Yards ...with a turning saloon as at the Regent's Park, London'. The two dioramas were 'Interior of Canterbury Cathedral' and 'Ruins of Holyrood'. However the artist of this 'Holyrood' was not Daguerre but clearly stated to have been Clarkson Stanfield. ¹⁹

Indeed, Daguerre's diorama of 'Holyrood Chapel' was still on exhibition in London in September 1825. After transfer to Liverpool and Manchester during the next two years, it was put up for auction in Manchester in December 1827 before then appearing at the Dioramas in Dublin and Edinburgh. Stanfield was in a position to have painted actually at Holyrood in Edinburgh, while there is no evidence that Daguerre ever visited either Scotland or England. It can be a reasonable assumption (it was not precisely identified otherwise) that the other Bristol picture showing 'Canterbury Cathedral' was also by Stanfield. Bouton's diorama of 'Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral', was certainly on display in Liverpool during September 1825.

The 'Diorama' at Bristol was not intended to be permanent, for several reports referred to the building as temporary. ²⁰ The exhibition in Bristol was continued for a few weeks after the Fair closed, but without extending much into November. The venture must have been an imitation rival show cashing in on the reputation of the authentic Diorama in London and Paris. It would not be easy in a temporary building for only a short season to provide true dioramic lighting effects - what type of 'temporary' construction would be a 'spacious building, built expressly', requiring darkness for the audience but with complicated daylight lighting arrangements for two dioramas? One advertisement close to the end of the exhibition even said the opening hours in October included 'Evenings, from 7 till 9': difficult to reconcile with the lighting requirements for dioramas.

The administrators of the London Diorama at some time placed an objection to the show .No doubt they believed it was contrary to their Diorama patent and indeed the objection is very understandable when we recall that advertisements for the Bristol show were for pictures of the same title as Daguerre and Bouton's productions as well as specifying the use of 'a turning saloon, as at the Regent's Park, London'. A response in the Bristol Mercury to the objection is most revealing: ²¹

'The Foreign Artists who introduced the Diorama into this country seem to have entertained an erroneous idea of the nature of the protection which our laws would afford them...- the credit of being the original inventors was not enough to gratify their cupidity, and their ambition; but they would restrain the talents of our native artists,under the ridiculous pretence of copying their pictures...The foreigners, who have reaped already so abundant an harvest from the curiousity of John Bull, have had the presumption to apply for an injunction against the proprietors of the Diorama now exhibiting in Bristol; that they failed must be a source of congratulation to the admirers and patrons of Bristol talents; but the proprietors of the Bristol Diorama have the greatest cause to triumph, as the very attempt was an unwilling homage to the very superior claims of their beautiful pictures... we understand it will close next week.'

'The Misses GIROUX, having returned from the Continent ...announce... that their ACADEMIES in Bath, Bristol and Clifton, have now re-opened...Tuesdays, at Miss C. Giroux's, 43, Queen-square, Bristol; and Wednesdays and Saturdays, at Miss GIROUX's, 14, George-street, Bath, Schools and Private Families attended as usual." ²²

At the end of the following decade Alphonse Giroux had a contract with Daguerre for the production and sale of Daguerreotype cameras and processing equipment, so is it possible that episode ²⁴ in the history of photography had a prior run for Giroux with regard to the Diorama in England? If Giroux and his family were involved in the venture in Bristol he could have been engaged - even with Daguerre's knowledge - in an attempt to side-step the English proprietor of the London Diorama. But on display was not Daguerre's work but original or copy dioramas painted by Stanfield!

Such a counterpart Diorama, organised directly from Paris in competition with the London Proprietors, might have proved successful if the apparent use of a rotating saloon had been forgone: for it is that feature which provides a significant part of the English Diorama Patent. Indeed, consideration of patent law might suggest another reason why a rotating saloon Diorama could have been temporarily in Bristol. The Diorama patent obtained in February 1824 was truly an English patent: ie.it did not apply to Scotland or Ireland. So, if Giroux was involved, then it is not inconceivable the port of Bristol could have been a stage on the way to (say) Dublin,with a temporary exhibition there due to family links with the area. Yet how can the use of Stanfield's pictures and the xenophobic remarks in the local newspaper be reconciled with a Giroux connection?

Perhaps some inconsistency of evidence about the Bristol Fair venture should not be taken too seriously because statements made then were merely showman's hyperbole. It will be observed that the consequence of supposing Alphonse Giroux was somehow involved makes the situation extremely confused - we must need to put aside the advertisement for the dancing Girouxs of Bristol and pretend that Occam's Razor applies to historical studies. So, in the end, our present knowledge has to point to the Bristol venture as a rival to the London Diorama with the involment of Clarkson Stanfield, and that it was organised in England.

Diorama Management and scene painters

The Diorama was patented in England at the beginning of 1824. But compared with, say, the manufacture of a 'self acting watercloset', it is not the type of subject that forms a natural patent. The patentee's ²⁵ description was 'an improved mode of publicly exhibiting pictures on painted scenery of every description, and of distributing or directing the daylight upon or through them so as to produce many effects of light and shade'. Unless an English branch of the Arrowsmith family kept active control (which is not very likely) then the managers of the authentic Dioramas in England must have either purchased the patent outright or one or several licences were obtained.

Just as the word diorama can apply to both a building and a picture, can it be clear to us now,and was it clear at first to the purchaser and to the non-purchasers then, as to the boundary of the rights provided by the patent? It must have been essentially concerned with design of the building, the use of a rotating salon, and the contrivances used to control direction and colour of the light. The scene painting aspect is not so clear. Maybe a contract to use Daguerre and Bouton's paintings would be a requirement from the patentee, or it would be cheaper and easier to use those well publicised dioramas from France rather than have new ones painted in Great Britain.

It is also necessary to remember that the situation was different in Dublin and Edinburgh as the patent obtained by John Arrowsnith in 1824 did not apply out of England. Certainly the existence of a patent would not be alien to managers in England as it might be to the temperament of the painters and indeed with regard to the production of the picture the patent was unclear. Scene painters were using similar techniques (if not so large or elaborate in control of lighting changes) at theatres in London. They were providing scenic illusion familar to London audiences since earlier masters such as Loutherbourg. No names of people involved in 1825 in the officlal or imitation dioramas of 1825 have been discovered, except 'Mr. Stanfield, whose distinguished talents stand unrivalled', as the painter of the diorama displayed at the Bristol venture in September 1825.

The Diorama was rather like a theatre without actors. So the people involved in the imitation dioramas in Edinburgh and Bristol would on the one hand have been Gallery or theatre managers, and on the other; scene painters. Although they both later went on to illustrious Fine Art careers , both Clarkson Stanfield (1793-1867) ²⁶ and David Roberts (1796-1864) ²⁷ in their early years, like Daguerre, were predominately theatre scene painters. Although there is some reason to bear in mind that Stanfield may not necessarily have been the only scene painter from London ²⁸ involved in the preparation of both dioramas displayed at Bristol, even if he had not been named his other known activities would have made him a suspect.

1825 is the year of significance in the present part of this study and so it is unfortunate that this period in the lives of both Stanfield and Roberts particularly lacks documentation. ²⁹ Only a few months after the Bristol Fair Stanfield was also presenting a Poecilorama exhibition in London ³⁰ in which the picture 'although small like those of the Cosmorama' did have 'similar contrivances to those used at the Diorama'.

The episode in Bristol in September is quite likely to have been an early stage of Stanfield's (and Robert's) work for the 'British Diorama' ³¹ set up in London in 1828 at the Queen's Bazaar, Oxford Street, in competition with the authentic one in Regent's Park. It is not known how it came about that the British Diorama had that particular name, but, apart from the usual general xenophobia, anti-French feeling was very prevalent at this period after the Napoleonic wars, and the Society of British Artists, ³² with whom Stanfield and Roberts also became involved had first opened its doors in Suffolk Street in 1824.

Clarkson Stanfield had a considerable experience, like Daguerre, in producing scenic effects in the theatre and no doubt would find it difficult to accept that Daguerre's Dioramic effects should be an exclusive right. What is surprising is that Stanfield did produce a diorama at Bristol apparently copying Bouton's diorama of 'Trinity Chapel in Canterbury Cathedral' and Daguerre's 'Holyrood Chapel', and that an Edinburgh artist (maybe Roberts) was also in January 1825 involved in painting dioramas of the same name as those done in Paris. Could it have been that Stanfield and Roberts had early on been officially commissioned to produce copies rather than bring the originals over from Paris?

But approaching the gap in our knowledge from the opposite direction, perhaps we should wonder how is it that three of Daguerre's dioramas featured Edinburgh scenes? When he was an émigré, the French King Charles X had lived at Holyroodhouse, and indeed had honoured Daguerre specifically for his easil painting of Holyrood Chapel. ³³ Yet there is no evidence that Daguerre ever went to Scotland. He must have copied the Edinburgh scenes from the work of other artists or engravers: it would be interesting to find out if such work had ever been done by the lithographer J. Hall (later manager of the Edinburgh Diorama).

Few painters would consider producing an easil painting as a copy of such work by another artist, but theatre scenery would quite legitimately be produced from publicly available images of the world, which at that time consisted of paintings, drawings and engravings only. No place can be out of bounds to all other artists because one painted it first, but painting the same scene and copying another persons painting are different activities. Both Stanfield and Roberts painted from the actual Edinburgh landscape. They did paintings of Holyrood Chapel so why should they not feel they could not do dioramas of those subjects?

Even so they could certainly be accused to taking advantage of the publicity obtained by Daguerre's dioramas. What else would it be but deceit to pretend their productions were supposed to be original diorama by another person. The fact that the dioramas shown in Edinburgh and in Bristol in 1825 had the same titles as Daguerre and Bouton's dioramas is certainly difficult to comprehend other than as deliberate copies with intent to cash in on the work from Paris. Daguerre did have a special obsession and a special talent not shared by Stanfield or Roberts to offer: a command of the ways of light.

Any reader of the above will no doubt be clear about just one thing: there are huge gaps in our understanding of the organisation of these rival Dioramas in Great Britain. But although the gaps and problems are dominate, it is now possible to have some ideas regarding the direction further work on the subject needs to take. Although evidence regarding the involvement of Clarkson Stanfield is extremely small, and regarding David Roberts non-existent!, and although it is an involvement in rivalry with the Daguerre's Diorama in Great Britain, this writer believes that for the purposes of research an exploration of Stanfield, and to a lesser extent Roberts, could prove rewarding.

The events in Edinburgh in the January and especially in the September of 1825 in Bristol, inspite of being rival events to the authentic Diorama, have many odd aspects. and to solve some of their problems could in an oblique way open up fuller understanding of the fresh information we shall now see about the way Daguerre and Bouton's authentic Diorama was brought to Great Britain. For Daguerre's skills with light - described later by a reviewer in The Times as 'more like the illusions of enchantment than the mere creations of art' ³⁴ were experienced by a wider public outside Paris and London. Indeed Daguerre's dioramas were able to move on to Dublin and Edinburgh as well as to two places in England ³⁵ where such moments of wonder would surely not have been in ample supply: to the fast-growing Manchester and Liverpool of the late 1820s.

Continues

This document is © copyright R. Derek Wood, 2000. Other than for non-commercial and or scholarly research this document may not be reproduced in any form electronic or otherwise without the written consent of the author R. Derek Wood and the publisher Taylor and Francis

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