There are names in horological history that echo much more than just watches... Such is the case of Jaquet-Droz, 18th Swiss watchmakers with an international horizon, whose ceremonial clocks, prodigious androids, fashionable birdcages, pocket watches with moving scenes or collector's snuffboxes remain the stuff of dreams for passionate enthusiasts. Today, the Maison Jaquet Droz continues to draw its inspiration from this rich heritage in order to reinterpret techniques and aesthetics, pushing back the boundaries of watchmaking and representing a perpetual source of fascination for collectors. Based on the latest research on the subject and published on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721-2021), this book offers a deep dive into the history of characters with a captivating journey. Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, in what was then the principality of Neuchatel, Pierre Jaquet-Droz founded a watchmaking workshop and developed it through a combination of technical, artistic and commercial skills enabling it to reach international markets. His son Henry-Louis developed the family business and further diversified production, a significant portion of which found its way to China and its dignitaries, devotees of luxurious and ingenious mechanical marvels. This richly illustrated book aims to enable a rediscovery of their mechanical masterpieces as well as those of the Maison Jaquet Droz, whose rebirth and recent history are recounted here. These splendid historical and contemporary pieces embody a love of technical challenges and a taste for artistic refinement, adhering as much as possible to the sources of inspiration offered by nature. The Worlds of Jaquet Droz thus reveals part of the expansive universe of pre-industrial watchmaking while drawing parallels between past and present productions.

This comprehensive, illustrated handbook is intended for collectors of apothecary bottles and other pharmaceutical and medical paraphernalia, covering artifacts likely to appear in North America and the United Kingdom from early Colonial times through approximately 1920. The book contains by far the largest compendium of terms used on apothecary bottles and other wares, comprising over 10,000 entries. Introductory materials provide instructions for use of the compendium, a concise history of apothecary containers and labels, and definitions and discussions of archaic terms for apothecary processes, weights and measures, therapeutic actions, and disease states. Appendices cover apothecary Latin, alchemy and alchemical symbols, astrological symbols, bottle manufacturers, and botanical terms. Illustrations are provided for various types of bottles and containers, apothecary devices, and for nearly 300 botanical species.

Over 500 crisp color photos display the wide range of cameras produced from the earliest days of photography to the rise of the digital age. The informative text provides a history of cameras, organized into chapters by various camera types, including snapshot, folding, rangefinder, single lens reflex, twin lens reflex, stereo, panoramic, miniature, and spy cameras. Cameras within each chapter are arranged chronologically to show the development of the camera type. Every camera presented has earned its place by meeting one or more of these criteria: it is a major landmark; epitomizes a certain era; is rare or a prototype; contains something different or unusual in the design; and/or is especially weird or strange. Rounding out this engrossing guide are a glossary of technical terms and an index. This book will be enjoyed by camera collectors, photo historians, and all who have ever captured life on film or in pixels.

This text is a philosophical discourse of creativity and conceptuality, both in theory and in practice. It brings together the theories of some of the biggest western thinkers of all times, from Descartes and Nietzsche to Baudrillard and Derrida, on one common point, Nothingness and the Other. It aims to present creativity through several different dimensions by bursting the cultural bubble in order for the reader to gain a vantage point of view from the outside. It tackles both the issues of creativity in life as well as art, at the same time as it puts them into practice. Visually, it contains part of a collection that is linked to this text on all possible levels and should serve as examples. The technical Drawings are also included in order to help you follow through the entire process of their construction. Graphically, it will demand that you read it from slightly different angles and will force you to trace the words through different pages in order to help you to add your own sense to it. On the other hand, the book does not demand a reading in the strict sense of the word. One single page could make you re-evaluate everything. All I, the author, ask of you, is to make this book your own. Use the white spaces to write on. Use it as a sketchbook, use it to squash bugs, use it to level the dinning table. R. Tavakoli

This adaptable instrument's origins date back centuries. Celtic legends amuse us with mystical stories describing the creation of stringed music, but practical history recounts that the modern birth of the violin occurred in Italy as early as the sixteenth century. The skilled craft of hand production was renowned in France as well, but it is the British classic type and its history that W. Meredith Morris writes about in British Violin Makers . This classic, comprehensive reference to violin making, reprinted in 1920, features a biographical dictionary of craftsmen, along with many of their signatures and marks. Twenty-six photographs of selected makers and their instruments help place the contemporary reader in the style of the period. Reverend Morris's second edition improves upon the first 1904 edition by adding more than 150 names to the list of makers who produced six violins or more. A new foreword by music scholar Benjamin Hebbert explains the important role British violin makers played in the development of the instrument. From Morris's narrative, one gets a feel for the importance of the craftsman and his materials. He explains the various types of wood and varnish used, and how they, along with the arch and contour, work together to produce a specific tone. Speaking with fervor, the way a wine connoisseur does when describing a certain vintage, Morris compares and contrasts the quality of British instruments to that of other nations.