Book: Specimens of Fancy Turning
NYC dealer Peter Kraus of Ursus Books, Ltd. writes:

[WOOLSEY, Edward J.] Specimens of fancy turning: executed on the hand or foot lathe: with geometric, oval, and eccentric chucks, and elliptical cutting frame. [2], 2 pp. and 30 unnumbered leaves of plates. 4to, 220 x 180 mm, publisher's green cloth. Philadelphia: Henry Carey Baird, 1869.$15,000.00

A fine copy of this wonderful example of the use of photography in America in the nineteenth century. In the preface Woolsey states that he made these images. Inspired by "an amateur friend", whose "exquisite productions" were too delicate to be successfully photographed, these "coarser" designs were produced by first applying India ink to an enameled card with a "flat camel's hair brush". The card was then fastened to the face of a chuck with tacks or mucilage, whereby a spring tool "cut through the blackened surface of the card, exposing to view the white paper". The cards were subsequently photographed. "They lack, however, the depth of black background, which cannot be equaled by the solutions of silver employed by the photographer." A fine copy of this rare book.

For more information, see:
Specimens of fancy turning: executed on the hand or foot lathe: with geometric, oval, and eccentric chucks, and elliptical cutting frame(https://www.ursusbooks.com/pages/books/171762/edward-j-woolsey/specimens-of-fancy-turning-executed-on-the-hand-or-foot-lathe-with-geometric-oval-and-eccentric)

This early photography book features thirty tipped-in albumen silver prints of geometric designs created on "the hand or foot lathe". Resembling something between spirograph drawings and textbook diagrams of orbiting electrons, the figures were created using geometric, oval, and eccentric chucks and an elliptical cutting frame. Attributed to "an amateur" on its title page, the book is the work of Edward J. Woolsey (1803-1872), an heir of the mercantile Woolsey family and partner in the New York Patent Sugar Refinery.

To read the complete article, see:
https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fancy-turning/(https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fancy-turning/)

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