author
Henry Bursill
A Victorian artist with a playful streak, he turned simple hand shapes and lamplight into a book of shadow figures that still feels charmingly inventive. Best known for Hand Shadows to Be Thrown Upon the Wall, he blended the eye of a sculptor with the delight of a showman.
1 Audiobook
Hand shadows to be thrown upon the wall
by Henry Bursill
About the author
Henry Bursill, also known as Henry Wayte Bursill, was a 19th-century English sculptor and designer. Reliable records identify him as active in London and note that he was born around 1833 and died in 1871.
He is remembered by many readers for Hand Shadows to Be Thrown Upon the Wall, first published in 1859. The book presents a series of figures made with the hands and projected onto a wall, turning an ordinary room into a small theater of birds, animals, and comic characters.
That mix of craft and play helps explain why his work has lasted. Even though he was professionally known as a sculptor, the surviving book shows a lighter side: an artist interested not only in form, but in the pleasure of making something surprising out of almost nothing.