Scene 22: De Soto’s Burial at White Cliffs takes place at night, De Soto and his soldiers lit only by moonlight. It turns out that during Dickeson’s lectures, that light wasn’t just painted on canvas.

The Saint Louis Art Museum’s conservators recently discovered that the moon in Scene 22 is actually a cut-out with a piece of greased fabric sewn behind it. During a lecture, a worker would have held a lantern behind this fabric, making the moon glow. The 1850s version of special effects, this added lighting would have surprised audiences and added the kind of dramatic flair Dickeson seems to have favored in his lectures.