Plateau developed this Fantascope, else called a Phenakistiscope or Wheel of Life, just about a decade after the very first optical toys of the 1820's. To use the Fantascope, one of the disks is affixed to the handle and held facing a mirror. The viewer looks closely through the apertures on the rim and spins the disk so that the reflected image appears in continuous motion. A later model (c. 1850) used a separate shutter to eliminate the need for a mirror. Plateau (1801-1883) formulated the principle of persistent vision on which all of these types of optical toys depend, and is considered to have laid the foundations for the Zoetrope and for animated film (see "Joseph Plateau. Living Between Art and Science", exhibition catalogue. Ghent, 2001). Subjects in the hand-coloured disks include a bicyclist, a bell ringer, a jumping horse, dancers, a juggler, a glutton, and a growing plant. Two of the disks (cat chasing bird and mouse escaping hole) have images which extend beyond the circle, but these parts are worn with some loss. The box label credits T.M. Baynes as the artist, though he is not mentioned elsewhere.