Sir A. Conan Doyle's Inanimate Sculptor: Carving From Life By Machinery
Sir A. Conan Doyle's Inanimate Sculptor: Carving From Life By Machinery is an article written published in The St. Louis Republic on 6 september 1903.
The article is about the sculpting machine that Arthur Conan Doyle bought the rights.
Sir A. Conan Doyle's Inanimate Sculptor
(6 september 1903, p. 43)
1. Carving two facsimile marble busts of Homer simultaneously.
2. An experiment in carving direct from life.
3. Another view of the same.
4. Half an hour's work on the head of Augustus.
In our drawing a bust of Homer has been rigidly fixed in position, and beyond it two blocks of marble. The operator places himself on a fixed seat, and with great care guides a wooden pointer over the surface of the bust. This controls the action of two steel drills facing the blocks of marble, which move in exact correspondence with the wooden pointer, and which, being made to receive by the straps of a powerful gas engine in an adjoining shed, carve the marble blocks into facsimiles of the bust. It was suggested that it would be possible to carve from the life if a sitter were fixed with his head in a rigid position. The idea had not previously occurred to the owners of the invention, but they at once placed the machine and workmen at our artist's disposal. A wooden frame was made to fix the head, and on August 14 a marble bust was for the first time carved from life by machinery. The invention has been purchased by Sir A. Conan Doyle and Mr. W. G. Jones — London Black and White.
