A rare mid 18th-Century English delineator,

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Details

A rare mid 18th-Century English delineator,
signed G. Adams Fleet Street London, c.1765, in a fitted mahogany case -- 46 x 18 x 4cm. (18 x 7 x 1½in.)

See Illustrations

The equipment to form the frame of the delineator is all closely packed in a mahogany box, which also forms part of the instrument. Two blocks, each part round and part flat, are attached to the inside of the fully-open box by a pair of stout screws with wing heads. The round parts can be thrust into sockets on an easel. The lip of the front of the base of the box is hinged so that it folds forwards and is fixed by a pair of screws with knurled heads. At the mid-point of the lip is a brass dovetail to accept the counterpart on a mahogany bar (23cm. long) with a central slot to hold a side bar with tightening screw, and complement of the dovetail. At one end is the hole in which inserts the iron shaft (20.3cm. long) with a U-bracket for the spyhole through which the artist views the object. There is a choice of three viewing apertures. A further wood and brass bar has a brass T-bracket at one end and a brass plate with a skeleton triangle at the other. The T-bracket has locating pegs fitting behind the signature plate, and a hole for a fixing screw at the centre. Two half-inch bars (34.3cm. long) have one end brass-clad to slip into a slot in the edge of the box lid, secured in place by a spring clip. The other end of each bar is pinned to a third that joins the two , and provides the beginning of an articulated system comprising two wooden bars and four brass ones. These are manipulated to suit the artist and the occasion. Missing are the shaft of the pencil holder, a grub screw, and a screw through the nameplate of identical thread to the pencil-holder. The box is chipped.

Literature

HAMBLY, Maya, Drawing Instruments 1580-1980 (London: Sotheby's Publications, 1988) esp. ch.10, "Perspective Aids".
MILLBURN, John R, Adams of Fleet Street Instrument Makers to King George III (Aldershot & Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2000)
REES, Abraham, The Cyclopedia, vol. XI (London: Longman, 1819), art. Delineator.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis

Sale room notice

Please note that this instrument has not been correctly assembled in the accompanying catalogue photograph.

Lot Essay

The delineator is an aid for drawing, and particularly for achieving perspective. Such devices have a long history, dating from the fifteenth century. The oldest and best known is the camera obscura. A device using grid frames and one or two sighting pinholes was developed in the seventeenth century. In 1669 Christopher Wren presented his 'Perspectograph' to the Royal Society, and variations of this continued into the nineteenth century. A delineator was patented in 1778 by William Storer, for which he claimed great convenience over the camera obscura, because sunlight was not needed, and the device could be used at night, by candlelight.
George Adams, Junior (1750-1795) illustrated in his Geometrical and Graphical Essays of 1795, a complicated apparatus involving rollers. The present instrument is an earlier and simpler version of this, incorporating the frame and a single pinhole., mounted on the box containing the apparatus. It will have been made under the supervision of George Adams, Senior (1709-1772) in about 1765.
The business of George Adams, Senior, was in Fleet Street; it was variously named, and was at 'Near Water Lane, Fleet Street' in 1757 until numbers were allocated in July 1766, when the premises became known as 60 Fleet Street. From the way the signature with address is given on the instrument, it may have been produced before the numbering.

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