Charles-Émile Reynaud

Charles-Émile Reynaud was born on 8 December 1844 in Montreuil-sous-Bois (now a suburb of Paris). His father Benoît-Claude-Brutus Reynaud was an engineer and medal engraver originally from Le Puy-en-Velay and his mother Marie-Caroline Bellanger had been a school teacher, but stayed at home to raise and educate Émile from his birth. Marie-Caroline was trained in watercolor painting by Pierre-Joseph Redouté and taught her son drawing and painting techniques. Brutus gave him little tasks in his workshop and by the age of 13 Émile was able to build small steam engines. In 1858 he became an apprentice at a Paris company where he repaired, assembled and developed optical and physics instruments. He then learned industrial design at another company, before working as an operator for photographer Antoine Samuel Adam-Salomon. By 1862 he started his own career as a photographer in Paris. He became an assistant to the famous Abbé Moigno in 1864. Moigno gave lecture-screenings with the magic lantern and converted Émile to Catholicism, since his parents had raised him without religion. When his father died in December 1865 Émile moved with his mother to Puy-en-Velay where Brutus' cousin Dr. Claude Auguste Reynaud further educated Émile in Greek, Latin, physics, chemistry, mechanics and natural science. In December 1873 Émile Reynaud started giving weekly scientific screening-lectures for the students of the industrial schools of Puy-en-Velay, free of charge and open to the general public. He used personally made photographic magic lantern slides in two projectors, sometimes dissolving from one projection to another.[1][2]

After Reynaud read a series of articles on optical toys published in La Nature in 1876, he created a prototype praxinoscope out of a discarded cookie box.[2] He applied for a French patent on 30 August 1877 for his then unnamed device (settling on the name Praxinoscope before the English patent of 13 November 1877) and returned to Paris in December 1877 to manufacture and market his invention.[2][3]

On 21 October 1879 Émile Reynaud married Marguerite Rémiatte in Paris. They had two sons: Paul (1880) and André (1882).

Reynaud's late years were tragic after 1910 when, his creations outmoded by the cinematograph, dejected and penniless, he threw the greater part of his irreplaceable work and unique equipment into the Seine. The public had forgotten his "Théâtre Optique" shows, which had been a celebrated attraction at the Musée Grevin between 1892 and 1900. He died in a hospice on the banks of the Seine where he had been cared for since 29 March 1917.

Reynaud and his Théâtre Optique in 1892

The Pantomimes Lumineuses were painted directly onto the transparent strip and manipulated by hand to create a circa 15 min show of circa 500 images per title.

A work by Reynaud

Series 3

• La Charmeuse
• La Balançoire
• L'Hercule
• Les Deux Espiègles
• Le Fumeur
• Le Jeu de grâces
• L'Amazone
• Le Steeple-chase
• Les Petits valseurs
• Les Clowns

Stereoscopic praxinoscope, 1908

• The praxinoscope, 1876
• The praxinoscope-jouet (toy praxinoscope), 1877
• The praxinoscope-théâtre, 1879
• The projecting praxinoscope, 1880
• Image bands with central perforation.
• The Théâtre Optique, 1888
• The stéréo-cinéma (animations in 3D), 1907

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Charles-Émile Reynaud.

• Charles-Émile Reynaud on IMDb
• Kinodinamico
• Who's Who of Victorian Cinema Biography
• Biography
• Biography
• Interactive display about Reynaud from the Cinémathèque française