Buatier De Kolta

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Buatier De Kolta (né Joseph Buatier, 1845 – 1903) was a French magician who successfully performed throughout the 1870s and 1880s in England and America. De Kolta was a contemporary of fellow French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. Many of De Kolta's illusions, such as multiplying billiard balls, the expanding die and the vanishing bird cage, are still performed by magicians today.

De Kolta is famous for his De Kolta Chair or Vanishing Lady illusion. A woman seated in a chair, covered by a large cloth would appear to vanish before an audience. Present-day magician David Copperfield has adapted this illusion in his own performances. De Kolta is the subject of the book Buatier de Kolta: Genius of Illusion by Peter Warlock.