3-053-236 - The London Archives (City of London)/Heritage Images

Egyptian Hall Piccadilly - Rubini in his Great Feat, Beheading a Lady!, 1867. Signor Rubini, real name Philip Prentice Anderson (1844-1920), was the son of a Scottish magician. He worked on his father's shows before going solo in 1867. The beheading illusion could be sensational entertainment but one observer thought Rubini's casual style meant 'it would be better to omit the trick than to pretend to cut off a woman's head as coolly as he would carve a fowl'. Anderson later became a pioneer of moving pictures.