The Mechanical Artist

Investigate instruments that draw and their products—writing machines, engraving devices, a camera obscura, and a physiognotrace (silhouette-drawing machine) are among one dozen devices shown through original specimens, replicas, photographs, and film (of a complex automaton drawing and writing a poem).

Among products on view are a dime-sized engraving of the Declaration of Independence and an engraving of the Lord's Prayer on one one-hundred thousandth of a square inch. A visitor may use the camera obscura to draw a companion's likeness. These devices, most of them built in the 1800s, enabled draftsmen, engravers, and artists to perform activities that could not be performed by hand.