Diorama, The ... is open daily from 10 till 4. Admission 2s.
The Diorama, in Park Square, Regent's Park, long an object of wonder and delight in Paris, was first opened in London, September 29, 1823. This is a very extraordinary and beautiful exhibition; it consists of two pictures that are alternately brought into view by a very ingenious mechanical contrivance; the interior resembling a theatre, consisting of one tier of boxes and a pit, being made to revolve upon a centre with the spectators, thus gradually withdraws one picture and introduces the other to the view. A judicious introduction of the light, and other contrivances, give increased effect to pictures beautifully painted, which, by a concentration of talent, completes an illusion that with perfect justice may be pronounced "the acme of art".
Mogg's New Picture of London and Visitor's Guide to it Sights, 1844
DIORAMA (THE). A place of exhibition in the Regent's Park, (Morgan and Pugin, architects), opened Oct.6th, 1823, and completed in four months at a cost of about 9000l. The building (with all the costly machinery, fifteen pictures, and the building ground in the rear of the premises) was sold in September, 1848, for 6750l., and again in June 1849, for 4800l.
Peter Cunningham, Hand-Book of London, 1850
THE ORIGINAL DIORAMA, Regent's Park - NOW EXHIBITING, two highly interesting Pictures, each 70 feet broad and 50 feet high, representing MOUNT AETNA in SICILIY, DURING an ERUPTION, and the ROYAL CASTLE of STOLZENFELS on the RHINE, with various effects. - Admission to both pictures only 1s; children under 12 years, half price. Open from 10 til dusk.
advertisement from Daily News, 3rd April 1851
DIORAMA, Regent's Park, situated in a row of fashionable houses turning out of the New Road, on the right, a few doors in the park, is an exhibition of architectural and landscape objects generally well painted, consisting of a rotunda 40 ft. in diameter, so arranged and illuminated as to display by the best effects the changes of light and shade with the greatest accuracy in developing nature and art. The accommodation consists of boxes and saloon, the floor of which turns on a pivot, for the purpose of bringing the spectator to either subject, like the proscenium of a theatre, behind which are the pictures for exhibition. ... DIORAMA, Park Square, Regent's Park - A building erected in 1823 for exhibiting two dioramic views in the same manner as those at Paris. They are changed nearly every year, and are generally very admirable for the truth of the changing effects of light and colour, in producing which natural light is exclusively used. The pictures are suspended in separate rooms, and a circular room containing the spectators is turned around, much like an eye in its socket, to admit the view of each alternately.
London Exhibited in 1852
THE Diorama, on the eastern side of Park-square, Regent's-park, was exhibited
in Paris long before it was brought to London, by its originators, MM. Bouton
and Daguerre; the latter, the inventor of the Daguerréotype, died 1851. The
exhibition-house, with the theatre in the rear, was designed by Morgan and Pugin:
the spectatory had a circular ceiling, with transparent medallion portraits; the
whole was built in four months, and cost 10,000l.
The Diorama consisted of two pictures, eighty feet in length
and forty feet in height, painted in solid and in transparency, arranged so as
to exhibit changes of light and shade, and a variety of natural phenomena; the
spectators being kept in comparative darkness, while the picture received a
concentrated light from a ground-glass roof. The contrivance was partly optical,
partly mechanical; and consisted in placing the pictures within the building so
constructed, that the saloon containing the spectators revolved at intervals,
and brought in succession the two distinct scenes into the field of view,
without the necessity of the spectators removing from their seats; while the
scenery itself remained stationary, and the light was distributed by transparent
and movable blinds-some placed behind the picture, for intercepting and changing
the colour of the rays of light, which passed through the semi-transparent
parts. Similar blinds, above and in front of the picture were movable by cords,
so as to distribute or direct the rays of light. The revolving motion given to
the saloon was an arc of about 73º; and while the spectators were thus passing
round, no person was permitted to go in or out. The revolution of the saloon was
effected by means of a sector, or portion of a wheel, with teeth which worked in
a series of wheels and pinions; one man, by turning a winch, moved the whole.
The space between the saloon and each of the two pictures was occupied on either
side by a partition, forming a kind of avenue, proportioned in width to the size
of the picture. Without such a precaution, the eye of the spectator, being
thirty or forty feet distant from the canvas, would, by anything intervening,
have been estranged from the object.
The combination of transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque
colouring, still further assisted by the power of varying both the effects and
the degree of light and shade, rendered the Diorama the most perfect scenic
representation of nature; and adapted it peculiarly for moonlight subjects, or
for showing such accidents in landscape as sudden gleams of sunshine or
lightning. It was also unrivalled for representing architecture, particularly
interiors, as powerful relief might be obtained without that exaggeration in the
shadows which is almost inevitable in every other mode of painting. The interior
of Canterbury Cathedral, the first picture exhibited, in 1823, was a triumph of
this class; and the companion picture, the Valley of Samoa, equally admirable in
atmospheric effects. In one day (Easter Monday, 1824), the receipts exceeded 200l.
In viewing the Diorama, the spectator was placed, as it were,
at the extremity of the scene, and thus bad a view across or through it.
Hence the inventor of the term compounded it of the Greek preposition dia, through,
and orama, scene; though, from there being two paintings under the same
roof in the building in the Regent's-park, it is supposed the term was from dis,
twice, and orama; but if several paintings of the same kind were
exhibited, each would be a Diorama. (Black.)
Although the Regent's-park Diorama was artistically
successful, it was not commercially so. In September, 1848, the building and
ground in the rear, with the machinery and pictures, was sold for 6750l.;
again, in June, 1849, for 4800l.; and the property, with sixteen
pictures, rolled on large cylinders, was next sold for 3000l. The
building has since been converted into a Chapel for the Baptist denomination at
the expense of Sir Morton Pete, Bart.
Dioramas have also been painted for our theatres by Stanfield and Roberts, the Grieves, and other artists. Other Dioramic exhibitions have been opened in the metropolis. In 1828, one was exhibited at the Queen's Bazaar, Oxford-street; in 1829, the picture was "The Destruction of York Minster by Fire," during the exhibition of which, May 28, the scenery took fire, and the premises were entirely burnt. In 1841, there was exhibited at the Bazaar, St. James's-street, a Diorama, of five large scenes, of the second funeral of Napoleon; but, though most effectively painted by members of "The Board of Arts for the Ceremony," and accompanied by funeral music by Auber, the spectacle excited little interest. At Easter, 1849, was opened the Gallery of Illustration, in the large saloon of the late residence of Mr. Nash, the architect, No. 14, Regent-street, a series of thirty-one Dioramic pictures of the Over. land Mail Route from Southampton to Calcutta; the general scenery painted by T. Grieve and W. Telbin, human figures by John Absolon, and animals by J. F. Herring and H. Weir: in picturesqueness, aerial effect, characteristic grouping, variety of' incident, richness of colour, and atmosphere skilfully varied with the several countries, this Diorama has, perhaps, scarcely been equalled; it was exhibited between 1600 and 1700 times, and visited by upwards of 250,000 persons.
John Timbs, Curiosities of London, 1867