Opening: $280 Hammer Price: $280 SOLD Skylight Gallery 14 December 2001

Vintage advertising placard for SYSTÊM THIBAULT movable street lamps, with two attached albumen prints of the SYSTÊM in action, ca. 1865. Prints approx. 5.25 x 3 inches (13x7 cm), entire sheet is 13.5 x 11.5 inches (34x29 cm), with folds and a few small tears.   ( Inventory# hb65 )

The 19th century fascination with gizmos is here seen in elaborate, Goldbergian machinery designed to replace the lamplighter's simple stepladder or lighting torch via a complex arrangement of nested tubing, counterweights and pulleys. The juxtaposed images work somewhat like a motion study and emphasize the sprightly agility to be found in lamplighters using the "SYSTÊM THIBAULT Console et Colonne ascendantes".

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