Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope – Antique Wall Art
(Originally scanned by the Library of Congress. Each image is professionally and digitally cleaned of artifacts such as color bars and extra borders prior to printing.)
Description
This rare vintage poster captures Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope in remarkable detail. It comes from the collections of the Library of Congress, scanned from the original and carefully restored.
The framed print arrives ready to hang; the unframed option suits custom framing. A conversation-starting piece for home, office, or as a meaningful gift. Free shipping in the lower 48 states. Since 2001, Snapshots of the Past has shipped historic prints to tens of thousands of customers around the world.
Edison's greatest marvel--The Vitascope
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The Vitascope was the projector Thomas Edison's company sold as a commercial successor to the Kinetoscope, and this poster promotes it as Edison's "greatest marvel." Printed in New York by the Metropolitan Print Company around 1896, the lithograph is a large advertising sheet of the kind used to sell theatrical attractions to vaudeville houses and other venues. Its bold color and oversized lettering reflect how early film was marketed as a novelty spectacle, shown to paying audiences on a screen rather than viewed one at a time through a peephole. The poster also records the copyright filing by Raff & Gammon, a detail that shows how carefully such promotional art was registered.
| Created / published | New York : Metropolitan Print Company, c1896. |
|---|---|
| Medium | 1 print (poster) : lithograph, color ; 73 x 97 cm. |
| Genre | and other venues |
| Notes | 29057B U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright by Raff & Gammon. No. 1. Published in: The tradition of technology : Landmarks of Western technology ... / Leonard C. Bruno. Washington, D.C. : Library of Congress, 1995, p. 250. No. 1. Published in: Eyes of the nation : a visual history of the United States / Vincent Virga and curators of the Library of Congress ; historical commentary by Alan Brinkley. New York : Knopf, 1997. No. 1a. Exhibited: On the Edge of Your Seat: Popular Theater and Film in Early 20th Century American Art, Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, 2002-03. No. 1a. Exhibited: Moving Pictures : The Un-easy Relationship between American Art and Early Film" at the Williams College of Art |
| Subjects | Edison, Thomas A. (Thomas Alva),--1847-1931--Associated objects. Motion picture theaters--1890-1900. Motion picture devices--1890-1900. Advertisements--1890-1900. |
| Source | Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division |
| Original scan | 1,536 × 1,184 px · prints to 5 × 4 in at 300 dpi |
| Reference | AMZ-SOTP-HPA-118859 |
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