The Lumière cinematograph

In 1895 the Lumière brothers patented the cinematograph, a "device serving to obtain and view chronophotographic prints", which was sold by Jules Carpentier. The moving pictures followed each other in intervals exactly equal to those between the exposures when the shots were taken, creating a startling impression of reality. In addition to the invention's entertaining character, contemporaries soon imagined applications in the arts and sciences. The Lumière brothers gave the museum this machine in 1897, but a cinema gallery was not created until 1927, when Louis loaned a prototype of his famous camera before donating it. The museum recently acquired a cinematograph made by Jean-Baptiste Tabary, an employee in the Carpentier workshops, that may have been a prototype for the mass-produced model.