Spirit glass slide by Édouard Isidore Buguet

This photograph is by Édouard Isidore Buguet (1840-1901). Buguet was a French medium and spirit photographer who became very famous in the early 1870s.

In 1875, the Parisian police raided his studio and discovered Buguet's photographic plates had pre-exposed images on them that allowed him to make his 'spirit images'. Buguet admitted his photographs were fraudulent and he served a year in gaol.

The magician Harry Houdini claimed the police also discovered figures and dolls heads at Buguet's studio that he used as props to make the pre-exposed images. Despite his confession, many people still believed Buguet's images to be genuine.