[This page][1] has a depiction of a wizard from a late 19th century [lantern slide][2]:

![enter image description here][3]

(some other magic lantern slides with wizards/sorcerers can be found [here][4] and [here][5])

It sort of seems like this guy is somewhere between the modern Merlin/Gandalf vision of a wizard and older depictions of the "renaissance magus" like the one shown [here][6] of Dr. Faustus from a 1620 edition of *Faust*:

![enter image description here][7]

Another similar Dr. Faustus, found on [this blog][8] which features a lot of old witch & sorcerer imagery:

![enter image description here][9]

And [here][10] is an illustration of Merlin by Gustave Doré from 1868, you can see the image of the wizard already included the robes and the long white beard but perhaps the conical hat wasn't yet part of standard wizard regalia in the public imagination:

![enter image description here][11]

And [this][12] illustration of Merlin from the 1889 edition of Mark Twain's *A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court* has a short conical hat, but again not the really tall kind we now associate with wizards:

![enter image description here][13]

Some of the films of silent film pioneer [Georges Méliès][14] feature characters with robes and conical hats decorated with stars and crescent moons, as is common in depiction of wizards...earliest example on my Méliès DVD seems to be "The Magician" from 1898, below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlsWesjhNWw

He also sometimes depicted astronomers in a similar costume, as in "The Astronomer's Dream" from 1898, and his most famous film, "A Trip to the Moon" from 1902:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SMIiQZUcs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sp5xAe43flk

He had a background in pantomime theater, so it's possible this type of costume was used in pantomimes to represent people who studied the heavens, whether for astrological magic or astronomy. The conical hat may be based on a type of hat used by the medieval philosopher [Duns Scotus][15], which later became an object of mockery (and the basis for the 'dunce cap') as explained in [this straight dope article][16]:

> What does this all have to do with those silly pointy hats?
> 
> Well, one of the more mystical things Duns accepted was the wearing of
> conical hats to increase learning. **He noted that wizards supposedly
> wore such things;** an apex was considered a symbol of knowledge and the
> hats were thought to "funnel" knowledge to the wearer. Once humanism
> gained the upper hand, Duns Scotus's teachings were despised and the
> "dunce cap" became identified with ignorance rather than learning.
> Humanists believed learning came from internal motivation rather than
> special hats, and used the public shame of having to wear a dunce cap
> to motivate slow learners to try harder.

[Here][17] is a cover to Twain's *The Mysterious Stranger* from 1916 which again features the pointed hat and stars-and-crescent-moons decorations ([this page][18] mentions that the image is of a character, "the astrologer", who was added to the first heavily-rewritten edition of the book and was not present in Twain's original text):

![enter image description here][19]

Perhaps the "The Sorceror's Apprentice" from Disney's *Fantasia* helped cement the modern iconic image of a wizard's hat in public consciousness (in the same way *Wizard of Oz* cemented the image of a witch, inventing the notion that they had green skin for example)--in this cartoon, Mickey gained temporary magic powers from "borrowing" the hat of his wizard master, which was pointed, blue, and had the star-and-crescent moon pattern often seen in later images of wizards. *Fantasia* came out in 1940, only 3 years after *The Hobbit*, so I don't know how likely it is that the Disney animators were influenced by Gandalf (especially since according to the ["Design and Animation" section of the Fantasia wiki article][20], "Animation on The Sorcerer's Apprentice began on January 21, 1938", and [this article][21] says "Houghton Mifflin Co. of Boston and New York published the first American edition of The Hobbit in spring of 1938 following its September, 1937 debut in the United Kingdom from George Allen & Unwin LTD").

![enter image description here][22]

[This page][23] has some of the story of how Disney artists came up with that particular design for the hat:

> For the actual filming of the animated classic, a well-known silent
> film star, Nigel de Brulier, was brought in to provide live-action
> reference footage for the character of the sorcerer. Disney writer
> Carl Fallberg went to the famous Hollywood costume rental house,
> Western Costume, to find the appropriate robe and pointed hat for the
> performer to wear during the shooting. Fallberg had to paste white
> stars and crescent moons onto the hat to get the look he wanted.


  [1]: http://museumvictoria.com.au/collections/items/750222/lantern-slide-wizard-cauldron-1850-1900
  [2]: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/landscape/lanternhistory.html
  [3]: https://i.sstatic.net/MnG1t.jpg
  [4]: http://www.carters.com.au/index.cfm/item/230877-magic-lantern-slipping-slide-1850-1900-stamped-hollowaymelbourne/
  [5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20110625092118/http://www.holburne.org/magic-lantern-show-2/
  [6]: https://olneytempest.wordpress.com/shakespeares-sources/prosperos-so-potent-art/
  [7]: https://i.sstatic.net/XyYe1.gif
  [8]: https://frankzumbach.wordpress.com/tag/witchcraft/page/47/
  [9]: https://i.sstatic.net/AhnSY.jpg
  [10]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_the_Lake#Later_uses
  [11]: https://i.sstatic.net/80DE1.jpg
  [12]: http://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/image/beard-merlin
  [13]: https://i.sstatic.net/YRIrw.jpg
  [14]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_M%C3%A9li%C3%A8s
  [15]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duns_Scotus
  [16]: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1793/whats-the-origin-of-the-dunce-cap
  [17]: http://resbas1.tumblr.com/post/25722318454/n-c-wyeth-the-mysterious-stranger-by-mark
  [18]: http://www.twainquotes.com/UniformEds/UniformEdsCh33.html
  [19]: https://i.sstatic.net/AdJBc.jpg
  [20]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasia_(1940_film)#Design_and_animation
  [21]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_American_editions_of_The_Hobbit
  [22]: https://i.sstatic.net/QP2xM.jpg
  [23]: http://allears.net/ae/issue798.htm