My new hobby is acquiring old books with lovely illustrations, scanning the illustrations at very high resolutions and uploading them to wikimedia commons with decent metadata.
The hobby started with this tin can telephone image
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_7_Le_Telephone_by_T_du_Moncel_Paris_1880_(Large).jpg
1/
This is apparently a phonautograph, built by Alexander Graham Bell inspired by actual human ear bones.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_13_The_Phonautograph_of_Clarence_John_Blake_(1880).jpg
2/
Here is a lady using one of the first Bell telephones
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ordinary_Bell_telephone_(1880).jpg
3/
This engraving is from the same source, showing a chap using the same earpiece / mouthpieces as dual audio, before the invention of proper headphone straps.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_25_Gentleman_with_two_telephones_1880.jpg
#engraving #BenoîtBonnafoux #mastoart #art #artist #LineEngraving #publicdomain
4/
This engraving shows a lady with something like a theremin earpiece device. The same woman as in the 3/ but possibly a different artist. Note the similar hairstyle and different outfit.
Here the artist is Armand Kohl and someone called Gilbert who might have done the engraving
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_53_Experimental_telephone_earpiece.jpg
#engraving #ArmandKohl #mastoart #art #artist #LineEngraving #publicdomain
5/
Here we have a Charles Laplante engraving of a chap using one of Thomas Edison's phonographs, where you have to talk loudly into a mouthpiece attached to a stylus that cut a groove into a wax cylinder - whilst turning a handle to rotate the cylinder.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fig_99_Phonograph_in_use.jpg
#engraving #CharlesLaplante #mastoart #art #artist #LineEngraving #publicdomain
6/
Chris Gilmour
