Paper theatre with backdrop cabinet and model cabinet-top theatre

The model theatre with classicistic backdrop and mounted brass pilasters is set up on top of a white, wooden cabinet with 15 drawers for acommodating backdrops, set pieces and figures, and surmounted by a lyre with laurel branches. It is fronted by a light box for illuminating the stage, including two rotatable, laminated glass discs to refract the light for fog effects. The drawers contain various stage sets, for example a ‘Japanese room’ for the comic opera “The Mikado”, as well as figures from popular works of world literature, all ready for the stage. When the theatre is presented in a darkened room, the eyes of the fascinated audience are drawn to the unfolding events. This paper theatre was probably constructed around 1900 by a carpenter in Berlin for the “Great Schreiber Theatre” with chromolithographic prints based on designs by Theodor Guggenberger (1866–1929), cut out and mounted on cardboard. Paper theatre performances enjoyed particular popularity as a pastime in middle-class families in the first half of the 19th century. Important broadsheet publishers such as J. F. Schreiber in Esslingen provided the accessories such as cut-out sheets and booklets of text. The scene set up here is modelled on the then famous Jules Verne novel “Around the World in 80 Days” (1873): the exoticism of the Indian palace serves as a backdropfor the episode where traveller Phileas Fogg saves thelife of the maharaja’s widow. With its small stage and decorations cut out from broadsheets the paper theatre thus gives rise to miniature worlds that also transport the viewer to far-away countries.