Moving Panorama - Surviving Moving Panoramas

Surviving Moving Panoramas

Few moving panoramas have survived to this day, and conservation issues prevent them from being shown in their original format. The most notable rediscovered moving panorama in the United States is the Grand Moving Panorama of Pilgrim's Progress, which was found in storage at the York Institute, now the Saco Museum, in Saco, Maine by its former curator Tom Hardiman. It was found to incorporate designs by many of the leading painters of its day, including Jasper Francis Cropsey, Frederic Edwin Church, and Henry Courtney Selous (Selous was the in-house painter for the original Barker panorama in London for many years). Another significant panorama, Russell and Purrington's "Whaling Voyage 'Round the World," is in the collection of the New Bedford Whaling Museum, although it was recently taken off display following renovations. C.C.A. Christensen's "Mormon Panorama" survives at Brigham Young University's Museum of Art, where it has been the subject of several recent shows and lectures.

Another moving panorama was donated to the Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection at Brown University Library in 2005. Painted in Nottingham, England around 1860 by John James Story (d. 1900), it depicts the life and career of the great Italian patriot, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882). The panorama stands about 4½ feet high and approximately 140 feet (43 m) long, painted on both sides in watercolor. Numerous battles and other dramatic events in his life are depicted in 42 scenes, and the original narration written in ink survives.