Lavater's Apparatus for Taking Silhouettes
Johann Kaspar Lavater
1881
This image is a reinterpretation of Lavater's image from 1783. It was originally produced by Thomas Holloway for the English-language translation of Lavater's seminal Physiognomische Fragmente, zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniss und Menschenliebe (Leipzig, 1775-78). Nearly a century later, Scientific American publishes a new version of the image, apparently a "wider shot" with more attendants in the room.
The article begins: "We reproduce, as a historical curiosity, an apparatus which was formerly much talked about, obtained a great success, and attracted the attention of savants and of physiologists, but which is entirely out of use at present."
Scientific American, vol.41, no.16, 16 April 1881
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