Very rare miniature toy Praxinoscope by Emile Reynaud together with all its 10 strips of animation. Complete, original and in very good condition nothing some creases on the strips as can be seen on the pictures. The drum is 12.5 cm or 5" in diameter, overall height 13 cm or 5 1/8".

The Praxinoscope was an animation device that was a distinct improvement on the then prevalently available zoetrope. It was invented in France in 1877 by Charles-Émile Reynaud who naturally enough named it by combining the Greek words for action and observe. Like the zoetrope, it uses a strip of pictures placed around the inner surface of a spinning cylinder. However the Praxinoscope fundamentally differed from the zoetrope by replacing its narrow viewing slits with an inner circle of mirrors, placed so that the reflections of the pictures appeared more or less stationary in position as the wheel turned. Someone looking in the mirrors would therefore see a rapid succession of images producing the illusion of motion, with a brighter and less distorted picture than the zoetrope offered.