Magic lantern pose slide showing a man standing in front of a grand building with a rifle across his back

Magic lantern pose slide showing a man standing in front of a grand building with a rifle across his back. Background image is photographic, foreground and figure are hand painted.

Pose slides were magic lantern slides which contained painted scenes designed to be projected onto large, flat, white screens in the traditional way. They often depicted familiar foreign landmarks or exotic destinations. However, each slide had a central figure represented in costume only, without the facial features, arms or legs of a person These human elements elements were provided by the pose artist, who stood on a white plinth on an exact spot on stage to fill the space on the slide projection.