Hi guys,

Whats the origins of illusions like the growing plant trick or the instant orange tree trick?

thanks,

Nimrod

I don't know when it first appeared, I know Pinchbeck and Fawkes demonstrated it at Bartholomew Fair in 1733.

Http://blog.modernmechanix.com/secrets-o......posed/4/

The thing where a guy plants a seed and makes the plant grow by magic? Or the feather flower botania trick?

This one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6GCK1qPlMM

the one with the blooming flowers

Here is something I built a few years ago: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6FKojvBjTRo


Chuck

It's beautiful. I need the history on this.

It looks like the dates back to DeKolta and Robert-Houdin. 1820-1890 for the mechanical side.
Feather flowers themselves date back a little further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feather_flowers
When spring/silk flowers hit the magic shops, it's a quick mechanical evolution to the dart bouquet plus cone -> botania item.

Pinchbeck and Fawkes were one hundred years earlier.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Fawkes

Hmmm the Turk dates back to 1770, so let's see about some contemporary references
Giuseppe Pinetti seems to have gotten some automata from Pinchbeck - who, sadly is not much admired for such things in the book below or the recent Steinmeyer book.
http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/4/4/5/6/4......62-h.htm

* I'd like to see some more contemporary data - but if you say Fawkes was doing the mechanical growing orange tree - okay

To the OP - this looks relevant. Cover item
https://issuu.com/potterauctions/docs/catalog_73_iissuu

Jonathan, I got the original info from the Pinchbeck book, the Wikipedia article confirmed it.

I forget what the book mentioned, I’m traveling currently - the wiki mentions an apple tree.

Interesting, in The Expositor (Pinchbeck's letters published 1805) there's the Learned Pig, the Eight Kings card mnemonic - but I'm missing detail about automata which would seem to require more than casual maintenance and care. Not sure how well the the Melbourne Christopher book (cited by Wiki article) holds up to modern scholarship.
There is mention of the apple tree item here: https://books.google.com/books?id=YzouAA......&f=false
which tracks back to volume 1 of Gentlemen's Magazine 1731 volume 1 page 79 and brief mention of Fawkes and the apple tree: https://books.google.com/books?id=_084AA......&f=false

Other books mention an alloy that looks like gold, some fine watchmaking, wondrous automata animals and birds which appear to sing, and a long history of fine clockmaking.
Other references explored include: Evans book The Old and New magic (mentions Pinchbeck but not much on Fawkes)
https://books.google.com/books?id=XMZNAQ......&f=false
https://www.haroldpinchbeck.co.uk/heritage
https://archive.org/stream/oldclockswatc......djvu.txt
https://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31547

Now that I'm back home, the book I was referring to is "Christopher Pinchbeck and his Family" by Rita Shenton. Page 20 references Isaac Fawkes display at Bartholomew Fair in 1733. Captioned - "causes a Tree to grow out of a Flower Pot on the Table, which blossoms and bears ripe fruit in a Minute".

Thanks . I'm looking to get historical data cross-referenced for items online while we have access.

For the historically interested - here's the mention from The Gentleman's Magazine Vol 1 1731 page 79 that on Monday February 15

I looked at the video. Great job on the build for the blooming rose plant. Looks very nice.

The video was good until around the 0:58 - 1:01 mark , at which point something happens that you really should have cut out , because it looks (and sounds) dreadful. What were you thinking in posting that ?!! You could just re-edit and repost the video. (up to the 0:51 mark it is fine) Why would you choose to leave that flub up on YouTube ?

Also, do you know that with even a very basic video editing program like iMovie or free ones like CapCut you can EDIT out embarrassing and revealing SOUNDS ? Just mute the audio track at that point , while the background music track continues to play , it will look and sound so much better without those awkward giveaway sounds.

http://tiny.cc/ThingsThatShouldNOTBeSeen



.