Drawing Instruments, 1580-1980

Maya Hambly

ISBN 10: 0856673412 / ISBN 13: 9780856673412

Published by Sotheby's Publications, London, 1988

About this Item

206 pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 26 cm. Early drawing instruments appear increasingly in salerooms, and architects, engineers, graphic artists and cartographers have long been fascin- ated by the antique tools of their trade. This com- prehensive historical guide, describing all the various instruments used and developed for geometrical drawing over the past 400 years, is an essential reference work for anyone connected with the preparation or appreciation of architec- tural or technical drawings, or for any collector of early examples. In a climate of change in the way early geometrical drawings are being looked at, a knowledge of the whole range of drawing instruments has become relevant.

Some of the basic drawing instruments in use today originated in Antiquity-ruling pens, squares, scales, dividers, compasses and rules. Additional aids were introduced from the Renais- sance onwards for the purposes of drawing curves, enlarging, reducing and copying drawings, and measuring to scale. Each century intricate devices were invented to carry out specific graphic func- tions, and these were sometimes so complicated to use that they were never adopted. All these instruments provide a fascinating subject for study, and in this book they and their functions are described in detail, and their origins and development traced. Cases holding sets of instru- ments are of particular interest to the collector, since many survive from the early seventeenth cen- tury onwards, displaying the beauty of fine workmanship.

The numerous illustrations represent the best examples of both well and lesser known European makers, on whose work the author has done much original research. A gazetteer of museums with substantial collections is included, and a select bibliography lists historic treatises, manuals and encyclopedias from the sixteenth century and the foremost reference works of modern times.

Seller Inventory # 13cb919

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Drawing Instruments, 1580-1980
• Publisher: Sotheby's Publications, London
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0856673412
• ISBN 13: 9780856673412
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Architecture

About this title

Synopsis

, 206 pages, illustrated in colour and black and white