URL: https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/fancy-turning/
Resembling something between spirograph drawings and textbook diagrams of orbiting electrons, the figures were created using geometric, oval, and eccentric chucks and an elliptical cutting frame
“Fancy” turning is an old artform, thought to originate in fifteenth-century Bavaria, with sustained discussions of the practice first appearing in Charles Plumier’s L’Art de Tourneur (1701).
The photographs in Woolsey’s book, on the other hand, focus on fancy turning when it is employed as a two-dimensional technique, as in the metalworks created by Rose engine lathes. There is little sense of depth — were it not for Woolsey's explanation, these designs would appear to be etched directly onto photographic paper. They simply celebrate the texture of light as it spirals out across a surface.
For Woolsey, he hoped his book might “lead to an interminable prairie in the world of mechanical pursuit, where fresh beautiful figures can be brought to light by every one who indulges in the exploration.”
