Reading, writing, drawing and making in the 18th-century instrument trade - Issue 01 (original) (raw)
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Reading, writing, drawing and making in the 18th-century instrument trade
Science Museum Group Journal, 2021
When George Adams assembled a large collection of philosophical instruments for King George III in the early 1760s, he drew on a variety of printed books as sources of experiments and instrument designs. Most important of these was Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy by the Dutch mathematician and philosopher Willem 's Gravesande, whose own collection of instruments is now in the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden. Papers in the Science Museum archives reveal the specific practices through which Adams used books such as Mathematical Elements in the course of his business. These techniques included commonplacing, a widespread method for organising information in the early-modern period; and physically cutting and pasting fragments from engraved illustrations into new drawings, as part of the process of design. These practices connected mobile print with local networks of production. They fundamentally shaped the group of instruments Adams made for George III, and constitute a material link between two important collections of 18th-century instruments: those of 's Gravesande in Leiden, and those of George III at the Science Museum in London.
The Use of Printed Images for Instrument-Making at the Arsenius Workshop
Early Science and Medicine, 2013
Mathematical instruments in the early-modern period lay at the intersection of various knowledge traditions, both practical and scholarly. Scholars treated instrument-related questions in their works, while instrument makers and mathematical practitioners also put much energy into producing instrument books. Assessing the role of that literature in the exchange of knowledge between the different traditions is a complex task. Did it directly influence workshop practice? Here, I will examine instruments from a famous Louvain workshop ca. 1570, focussing on the role of printed images. I will suggest that woodcuts did indeed inspire instrument makers; that images were sometimes more important than the text; and that the viewer’s appreciation of the images depended upon his familiarity with an instrument’s mathematical structure.
Albums of Science in Twelfth-Century England
Peritia, 2017
An 'album of science' is a manuscript containing materials on computus and at least one subject associated with computus, for example, astronomy or medicine. Its characteristic format is a mosaic of texts and tables. This article explains the logic behind the choice of materials and proposes a method for unlocking the compilers' intentions.
The Journals and the Instrument Maker
Nuncius, 2015
The Paris-based instrument maker Michael Butterfield publicised novel and fine quality instruments through the Journal des Sçavans from the journal’s early days on (between 1676 and 1684). The descriptions or advertisements of Butterfield’s instruments were not restricted to textual presentations only, but often included engravings. The reasons for including such images and the role played by the visual aspects of the presentation of instruments are the focus of the present paper. The earliest historical records of Butterfield’s work are provided by the Journal des Sçavans and the Philosophical Transactions during their first two decades of publication. The significance of these records for the historian, however, extends further than the bio-bibliographical aspect. Indeed, the presence of Butterfield’s instruments in periodic journals provides a case study of the conspicuous traits of the visual part of knowledge in such media. The periodic format for erudite and technical content ...
The Eighteenth-Century Print: Tracing the Contours of a Field
This essay examines new developments and trends in the study of eighteenth-century prints, with a particular focus on reproductive engraving, book illustration, fine art etching, and caricature. Recent studies demonstrate an increasingly theoretical engagement with the production and reception of prints and assert the centrality of prints and printmaking to the field of art history. Digital scanning and database technology have dramatically expanded scholarly access to the printed page, posing both opportunities and challenges to the conceptualization of the Enlightenment print.
The Emergence and Impact of the ‘Complete Drawing Book’ in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England
Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies, 2013
The emergence of the ‘complete drawing book’ in mid-eighteenth-century England was a remarkable phenomenon. Launched by print sellers as a new educational commodity, this particular type of drawing book exhibited both commercial acumen and cultural ambition by presenting a comprehensive programme to satisfy public desire for drawing instruction. It also embodied a subtle process of cultural assimilation and influence. Various kinds of pictorial model were assembled from diverse sources and organised in a way that visualised the ‘hierarchy of genres’. The complete drawing books thus played a role in shaping public perception of what constituted art within that hierarchy.
Noyes, Ruth (ed.): Reassessing Epistemic Images in the Early Modern World, 2023
This chapter surveys early modern scientific instruments adorned with images. These images per se have no relevance for the instruments' use. To date, such "instrumental imagery" and its contexts have only sporadically been analyzed. This paper presents methods aiming at a systematic analysis of this visual material to inquire after its role in the various contexts of the adorned instruments (genesis, function, use) and importance for crafting histories of success and relevance within the emerging fijield of the sciences. The iconography points to quite a few signifijicant topics: statements of specifijic positions in theoretical debates; mediation and illustration of knowledge, in particular by picturing the usability of the instruments; or the role of instruments as patronage artefacts.