Tandis que ma salle est bien sombre
Et que mon acteur n’est que l’ombre
Puisse, Messieurs, votre gaîté
Devenir la réalité.”
Long after the death of Seraphin, until 1870 in fact, the show continued in the hands of his descendants, presenting pieces especially written for it, with music composed to accompany the shadows.
It was the art critic, Paul Eudel, who first published an illustrated volume of such fairy pieces and melodramas composed by his grandfather in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Half a century later Lemercier de Neuville, who was interested in pupazzi noir as well as in other puppets, published another collection of little plays with fifty illustrations and with explanations of designs and methods of producing the shadows. De Neuville had enlarged the scope but had not changed the principles of the art. He presented animals who opened their jaws, processions and caricatures of celebrities such as Sarah Bernhardt, Zola, and others.
Tableau
From a shadow play of The Prodigal Son at the Chat Noir
[Designed by Henri Rivière]