French Paper Theater - d'Epinal No.1579 Part 1

I have a fondness for the paper toy sheets created by the French "d'Epinal" company during the late 1800's.  In late 2012 I did a series of jointed paper dolls I altered based in vintage d'Epinal "Pantin" sheets and today I'm posting about my latest project which is one of the d'Epinal Paper Theaters.

To keep this post from being too long I've broken it up in to two parts.

Welcome to Part 1 - d'Epinal Paper Theater No.1579

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My digitally altered and assembled version of d'Epinal Paper Theater Sheet No. 1579

While many paper theaters of the 1800's and early 1900's were available as a single image; 

 others had to be assembled from sheets where the parts were unassembled.

This was the case with d'Epinal No. 1579. 

It is a deconstructed sheet that required reassembly to form the main portion 

of the theater or "proscenium" as it is also called.

As I've stated in previous posts regarding d'Epinal sheets; 

These were inexpensive paper toy sheets and the print quality is not usually very good. 

This sheet was no exception and quite a bit of digital cleanup was needed 

to achieve the end result I was looking for.

The process of digitally building this vintage paper theater

The above image shows the steps I went through to take a vintage paper theater sheet and digitally enhance it to become the theater set I finally came up with.  Once this was achieve I then made a series of them in various color combinations. (I'll post them all for you next time in Part 2).

For this first post I wanted to talk a bit about this vintage theater 

and the process I took to get the "new" look for it.

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Usually d'Epinal sheets are too large to scan in one shot: 

so you either have to scan in sections or take a photograph and work from that.

This project was a digital "piecing" game for starters.

Once I had a full digital sheet to work with on the computer I moved on to cleaning up the image.

Before and After Alteration Examples

The original theater had blunt edges at the base and I wanted them to look more like the footed columns they were, so I digitally extended them. They could easily be cut off if they proved a problem when assembling a theater but I think they add a lot aesthetically and will enjoy having them there when I use the image in digital projects.

The original sheet also has a bit of a side curtain at each column; a red one on the left and a blue on the right. Personally I thought the looked better matching so I made them both blue. There was a substantial amount of color work that needed fixing throughout the parts and while I did not want to take away from the "charm" of the original I tried to clean up or enhance where I could.

This is what my final sheet looked like when I finished all the digital work

Now then I first attempted to assemble this theater, I got it totally and completely wrong.

Prior to this sheet the paper theaters I've worked with were assembled ones or those that formed an "arch" opening with no footer, so that's what I thought I had here - an Arch.

Boy was I wrong and I thought I'd share my giggle with you 

by seeing how I originally constructed this sheet.

Correct Assembly vs Incorrect Assembly

The large outer image is how I incorrectly put it together the first time.

I did not realize that this sheet (in the black box) consisted of 4 pieces and not 3 as I originally assumed. The top piece on the sheet is actually 2 pieces with a very slight separation between them.

These two sections form the middle header and footer (circled) of the theater and are flanked by the columns on either side to finish it off; forming a lengthwise theatrical rectangle.

Boy did it look so much better when assembled the correct way.

So - how did I discover my mistake...

I was looking at some of my other theater sheets and noticed some of them had small "assembled" diagrams in the corner of the sheet to assist the builder in doing the job correctly.

This d'Epinal sheet did not have that perk, yet when I re-studied the image I quickly realized where I got it wrong and then started looking through some of my reference images of  "unknown" paper theaters  and discovered this very one.  I just never associated the two since till now.

Here are a few images of those vintage theaters.

A vintage assembled version of the d'Epinal Theater at The German Ordensmuseum - image found HERE

The colors were so different on this version that I did not readily 

see this was the same theater on the sheet I was working with.

A view of the vintage theater above with out the scenery and fashion figures - image found HERE

I know on occasion d'Epinal sheets can have differently colored versions of the same No. sheet so I'm not sure if that is what happened in this instance or if this is due to sun exposure and fading.
Since I don't know the history of the above assembled theater; It may have been on display for years which would account for fading but if it was stored away then it was probably colored differently.

Here is an earlier 1854 d'Epinal Sheet of this theater with a very strong color scheme

This is a 1854 version of what later became the No. 1579 Theater Sheet

 This early version of this French Theater sheet by d'Epinal has much stornger colors and the print/color process is much higher quality than what was found in the later sheets.
There is even metallic gold ink trim on this example.
This image is from the French Library System - HERE

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I also wanted to add a curtain in for my theater to finish it off and while trying to discover what d'Epinal curtain my have originally come with the theater, I discovered this tantalizing site that sells reproduction sheets in Europe.

Many vintage paper theater parts are available in reproduction form as is this set from www.papiertheater-shop.com

This web site (http://www.papiertheater-shop.com/) sells reproductions of wonderful vintage theaters; they even had the curtain that should be used with the theater.

 Using images from their site I digitally constructed what their d'Epinal theater with curtain would look like and this is what I came up with.

Sadly I do not have the correct curtain, so I came up with a nice substitute

 that worked well enough for me. 

Vintage paper theater curtain from the Danish 1924 Illustreret Familie-Journal

I only had 2 d'Epinal curtains and since I did not like either of them for this theater;

I selected this vintage treasure from the Danish publication of Illustreret Familie-Journal

The vintage curtain image I started with was downloaded from Pilllpat (agency-eureka) on Flickr

Once again I did some digital alteration and clean up to the image I was using to arrive 

at the curtains pictured on the right of the above image.

While Red works great with the Theater I also wanted a blue curtain for it;

so a bit more alteration and I had what I was looking for.

Blue version of the vintage curtains.

Add the curtains in with the theater and I get this new look.
 

My version of the d'Epinal Theater with Familie Journal Curtains

Naturally I had to create lots of color versions of these which I will share in Part 2.
Click HERE for Part 2

 

Preview of theater color choices with closed curtain backdrop

Preview of theater color choices with open curtain backdrop

 
I hope you have enjoyed today's post and join me next time for the conclusion.

Till then...