[Shadow puppetry] "Chineesche schimmen"

Dutch shadow theatre with 4 wooden frames, each with a different chromolithogr. scene on very thin paper, to be put in a painted wooden proscenium (38 x 40 cm), with 22 (partly moving) shaped board silhouettes on wooden sticks and accompanying original text booklet Kluchtspelen voor de Chineesche schimmen geschikt voor kinderen (Amsterdam, printed by George W. van Biene, n.d. (c. 1900). 16 pp. with four plays corresponding with the screens (see below), contemp. wrapper, the screens, silhouettes and booklet kept in contemp. wooden box w. sliding lid (28 x 41 x 6 cm).

Screens occas. repaired w. sellotape; some silhouette figures damaged/ repaired. Cf. Buijnsters, Papertoys: speelprenten en papieren speelgoed in Nederland (1640-1920), p. 77, listing the edition H. Moolenijzer and G.Th. Bom, Amsterdam, 1852): "Vergeleken met het papiertheater bleef het negentiende eeuwse repertoire zeer beperkt tot een twaalftal stukken, waarvoor aparte boekjes in de handel werden gebracht (...)." The "Kluchtspelen" in our booklet are: De gebroken brug, De visschertjes, De snoepende kat and De rooversch in het bosch. Gregorius Wolf van Biene (1857-1923), from Rotterdam, started as seller of adverts and became a printer, impresario and publisher. In 1882, he opened a small printing office at Wijnstraat, but it moved twice inside Rotterdam. PiCarta does not list this booklet, only later, different publications with the address of Van Biene in Amsterdam. Van Biene established a printing office at Amstel 105 in Amsterdam before or in 1904 (a telephone book from that year lists his "stoomdrukkerij" there).