Drawings of Textile Machines

Wiltshire, UK: Moonraker Press. Very Good/Very Good. 1979. Hard Cover. 4to 0239001931 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. 120 pages clean and tight. Plates. Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.7 x 2.8 cm. Although Leonardo's drawings of textile machines in the Codice Atlantico in Milan and the recently discovered Madrid Manuscripts comprise only a very small - and comparatively unimportant - section of the great artist's work, they are nevertheless interesting as a group not only because they illustrate his amazing genius yet again, but also because, when looked at together, they throw an interesting light on the history of textile inventions. In this book an attempt has been made to arrange the drawings in a logical order based on the sequence of textile processing, and in a short introduction the editor describes the nature of these processes. Each drawing is accompanied by a commentary and - where applicable - a translation of Leonardo's own notes: but although sometimes helpful, these often add to the difficulty of interpretation. The artist's notes to the Milan drawings have been newly translated for this book. Kenneth Ponting spent the greater part of his working life in the textile manufacturing industry; an acknowledged authority on textile history and the author of several books, he is now Director of the Pasold Research Fund. .