A significant collection of "pull-the-tab" moving pictures. Such transformations were one aspect of the trend for moveable stationery which arose in Europe during the eighteenth century; the paper can be engineered in different ways, from simple sliding panels to hinged cut-outs, all operated by the pulling or sliding of a paper tab along the edge of the sheet. The themes and subjects shown are typically light-hearted and often satirical.



For example, a group of 30 caricatures present here show a range of domestic scenarios accompanied by humorous captions or titles. These include a tired new father who appears to be unaware of how to handle the baby and, when the tab is pulled, rocks him up and down in vain, and a finely-dressed man about town, who transforms into a donkey, described in rather unflattering terms:



"Although you strutt about the town

And try to ape the swell

You'r [sic] nothing but a Donkey

That any one can tell.

In spite of all your dandy airs

The folks about you joke

So think how sad a thing it is

To be a stupid Moke."



Likewise, Parisian lithographer Jean-François Benard, who operated the imprimeur-lithographe Aubert during the early-nineteenth century, published a short series of 'Caricatures orthopédiques'. "No. 3" in this satirical series shows a man working some rather complicated machinery; his hunchbacked form is dramatically elongated when the sheet is expanded. "No. 5" depicts a rather substantial lady, whose efforts to tighten her corset are shown by extending the page.



In addition to satire there are pull-tab pictures celebrating love, offering "to tell you your fortune", or simply serving as novelties. A group of nine prints, signed "A. Pett", who illustrated a book entitled 'An excusion to Horace's Sabine farm' in 1846, shows pastoral scenes in which the characters and animals are made to move by two pull-tabs along the lower edges. There are several pictures which appear to have been made as keepsakes or sent with messages such as "I sigh for you", illustrated with a portrait of a young woman who blinks when the tab is pulled.