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NeilE · 10 October 2002, 07:54 PM

Prof Stephen;

You must be referring to "The Grand Diorama of 1796". I guess the most famous account of this is in Hans Eduard of Prague's 1798 travelogue, "Travels through Europe With My Great Aunt's Scullery Maid".

From what Hans Eduard says the diorama consisted of a fully working guillotine scene, featuring (of course) the Guillotine, a couple of executioners, a fully workable Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Dante, and host of snivelling aristocratic figures with detachable heads, pigs blood bladders for those realistic spurting effects, and range of detachable wigs.

It is thought that the guillotine played the Marseillaise whenever it was cranked into the "up" position.

Also part of the diorama was the obligatory knitting and cackling old crone (To this day no-one knows how they got the cackling effects), a crowd of poseable Sans-Cullotes figurines with interchangeable pitchfork and rotten fruit accessories, and a number of revolutionary guardsmen. Apparently there was also a Robespierre figurine but this was stolen in 1797, when the famous diorama was exhibited in Bognor as part of the "Bognor On" Grand Exhibition. It is now thought the Robespierre figurine was stolen by a mysterious woman known only as "D_____".

"The Grand Diorama" was exhibited throughout Europe and inspired such early classic dioramas as "The Christians and The Colloseum" ( UK 1799), "Bedlam" (UK - 1801), "The Inquisition" (Sp. 1804), and "The Great Pogrom" (Russ. - 1806).

Somewhere along the line this penchant for nasty dioramas died out, to be replaced by those in which few people are dead, and if they are, they have a neat little hole in them and all their limbs are all in the right place. Why in some of them, the SS seem to be quite nice chaps even!

Still, given the modern age's prediliction for giving birth to horror after horror, its a wonder that the age of the nasty diorama does not return....

All the Best

Neil E

10 October 2002, 07:54 PM	#19 (permalink)
NeilE Forum Ace Contributor Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Reservoir, Melbourne, Aust Posts: 938	Prof Stephen; You must be referring to "The Grand Diorama of 1796". I guess the most famous account of this is in Hans Eduard of Prague's 1798 travelogue, "Travels through Europe With My Great Aunt's Scullery Maid". From what Hans Eduard says the diorama consisted of a fully working guillotine scene, featuring (of course) the Guillotine, a couple of executioners, a fully workable Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Dante, and host of snivelling aristocratic figures with detachable heads, pigs blood bladders for those realistic spurting effects, and range of detachable wigs. It is thought that the guillotine played the Marseillaise whenever it was cranked into the "up" position. Also part of the diorama was the obligatory knitting and cackling old crone (To this day no-one knows how they got the cackling effects), a crowd of poseable Sans-Cullotes figurines with interchangeable pitchfork and rotten fruit accessories, and a number of revolutionary guardsmen. Apparently there was also a Robespierre figurine but this was stolen in 1797, when the famous diorama was exhibited in Bognor as part of the "Bognor On" Grand Exhibition. It is now thought the Robespierre figurine was stolen by a mysterious woman known only as "D_____". "The Grand Diorama" was exhibited throughout Europe and inspired such early classic dioramas as "The Christians and The Colloseum" ( UK 1799), "Bedlam" (UK - 1801), "The Inquisition" (Sp. 1804), and "The Great Pogrom" (Russ. - 1806). Somewhere along the line this penchant for nasty dioramas died out, to be replaced by those in which few people are dead, and if they are, they have a neat little hole in them and all their limbs are all in the right place. Why in some of them, the SS seem to be quite nice chaps even! Still, given the modern age's prediliction for giving birth to horror after horror, its a wonder that the age of the nasty diorama does not return.... All the Best Neil E __________________ "There's something wrong with our bloody ships today." - Adm. Beatty, Jutland, 1916.