LEROY, Servais (1865 - 1953). LeRoy, Talma & Bosco. The Great Hindu Rope Trick. New York: Hegeman Print, ca. 1915. Lithographed window card shows LeRoy on the beach standing at the base of a rope suspended in mid-air, with an Indian boy perched at the top. 22 x 14", framed to 26 1/2 x 18 3/4". RARE; the first we have offered and one of only few we are acquainted with. 

LeRoy's described his version of this legendary (if not mythic effect) as follows: "At the rise of the curtain the audience sees a high four post structure well at the back of the stage on the left side. I enter and am handed a heavy rope by a Hindu assistant. Standing in the center of the stage, I ... pass my right hand over the rope as it starts going up in the air ... until the rope ascends some three feet. ... The climber is now called on and actually climbs some 12 feet up the rope and then stops. Upon request by assistant now hands me a cloth six feet long by four feet wide. I request in pantomime that the climber come down a little nearer to be covered with the cloth. I now change my mind and order the climber to go up again. It is here that my assistant and I pull the high structure to the center of the stage just back of the climber. ... My assistant and I now dash up the front poles of the structure. This movement is done very quickly and neatly. I rapidly slip the cloth over the climber. ... I now pantomime to the covered figure of the boy climber and request that he slip down some two feet. I now get hold of the cloth and quickly pull [it away] to find the boy vanished!"

Over-coloring visible, but not examined out of frame.