Scope and Content of Collection

The Nekes collection of optical devices, prints, and games charts the nature of visual perception in modern West European culture and the rise of popular artifacts which used movement and tricks of visual perception to amuse and astonish. The items date from circa 1700 to the early 20th century, with the bulk dating from the mid-18th century to the early 20th century. The collection contains rare items such as a French camera obscura, circa 1750, as well as popular images, such as 19th-century magic lantern slides, paper silhouettes and greeting cards with moving parts. Other items include an 18th-century peepshow, peepshow prints, over 100 megalographs, a camera lucida, a Lorrain mirror, a zograscope, anamorphosis watercolors accompanied by a cone viewer, and circa 20 collapsible Engelbrecht perspective theatres.

Arrangement note

Arranged in three series:
Series I. Prints, circa 1700-1996;
Series II. Cards and small printed items, circa 1750-1980;
Series III. Artifacts, 1700- circa 1980