Pierre Gaveaux, 1821, by Edme Quenedey (1756–1830) after a physiognotrace
A physiognotrace is an instrument, designed to trace a person's physiognomy to make semi-automated portrait aquatints. Invented in France in 1783–1784, it was popular for some decades. The sitter climbed into a wooden frame (1.75m high x 0.65m wide), sat and turned to the side to pose. A pantograph connected to a pencil produced within a few minutes a "grand trait", a contour line on a piece of paper. With the help of a second scaling-down pantograph, the basic features of the portrait were transferred from the sheet in the form of dotted lines to a copper plate, which had previously been prepared with a ground for etching. One week later, the sitter received an etched plate and twelve little prints.[1] The device but also the aquatint prints are called physionotraces.
^Physionotraces: galerie de portraits, de la Révolution à l’Empire
A physiognotrace is an instrument, designed to trace a person's physiognomy to make semi-automated portrait aquatints. Invented in France in 1783–1784...
described in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. A physiognotrace is an instrument, designed to support semi-automated portrait. It was...
taxidermy. In 1802, John Isaac Hawkins patented the second official physiognotrace, a mechanical drawing device, and partnered with Peale to market it...
Portrait of Robespierre (1792) by Jean-Baptist Fouquet. By using a physiognotrace a "grand trait" was produced within a few minutes. This life-size drawing...
1801 letter to Jefferson Thomas Jefferson Foundation: Henry Dearborn (Physiognotrace) Wheelan, 2005, p. 128 Stewart, 2011 pp. 148-149 Stewart, 2011, p. 111...
himself; but the instrument was poor in tone. Patented (1802) an improved physiognotrace, a device by which one could quickly produce a silhouette portrait (i...
about two years beginning in 1803, Peale toured Virginia with the "physiognotrace", a profile making machine, with which he was briefly successful. By...
Senate, 25 March 1802 Thomas Jefferson Foundation: Henry Dearborn (Physiognotrace) Thomas Jefferson Foundation: West Point Ambrose, 1966, p. 22 Lookingbill...
produced many portraits, perhaps as many as 800 works. He utilized the physiognotrace technique. He kept a studio in Boston c. 1813 and associated with other...
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