Specialist Hire For Films, Television & Photography

The Observatory set at Stowe School for "Stardust", MARV Films, with Robert DeNiro and Sienna Miller. Present and recent credits include the earlier Harry Potter films, "The Other Boleyn Girl", with Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johanssen and Kristen Scott Thomas, "The Golden Compass", with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, and "Elizabeth: the Golden Age", with Cate Blanchett, and "Creation", the story of Charles Darwin. A version of "Sherlock Holmes" was directed by Guy Ritchie, "Hereafter" was directed by Clint Eastwood, and "The Wolf Man" starred Sir Anthony Hopkins and Emily Blunt. "Agora", the story of Hypatia, the last of the Ancient Greek philosophers (and the only woman) was cheered by the audience when it was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. There have been numerous versions of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", and "Frankenstein". Items were placed in the recent long-running "The Tudors" series. Past credits started with "The Voyage of Charles Darwin", 1978, for BBC Television, then "The Onedin Line", a popular series which ran until 1981 and was brilliantly matched, as background music, to Khatchaturian's ballet "Spartacus", "The Elephant Man", (b/w,1980, with the excellent John Hurt), and include "Amazing Grace", "E=MC2", "To The Ends of the Earth", "The Da Vinci Code", "The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse", "Columbus", "Alexander the Great", "The Gunpowder Plot" and " Nouvelle France". We provide early props from the time of the Ancient Greeks to the early 20th Century. Advice on what is correct for any period is free. Our stock includes items suitable for a medieval alchemist, a Renaissance astrologer/mathematician, an 18th Century physician, mariners and navigators of many periods, or any scientist/inventor of the 19th Century. It includes early astrolabes, microscopes, telescopes, armillary spheres, orreries and globes. We hire by periods: 3 days, 7 days, or longer by arrangement. We have not given hire fees as these vary according to each item and the period required. Email or telephone us for an instant quote.

Sections

Natural History: animal, bird and other skeletons
Globes (celestial and terrestrial), armillary spheres and orreries, suitable for AD1600-1900
Early domestic copperware, earthenware and shop signs
Laboratory or dispensary glassware and apparatus, chemist's bottles and early microscopes
Medical or surgical instruments and apparatus, and hospital-ware suitable for any period from 1820-1950
Sextants, compasses, and other instruments for early navigation and exploration, suitable for AD1500-1900
Concave and distorting mirrors, prisms, magnifying lenses and glasses, and other optical devices
Physics apparatus and instruments. Early electrical apparatus and spark generators
Time and the weather: Hour-glasses, clocks, barometers, barographs and related items
Weighing scales

The Picure Library

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