rly 18th-century decorative
metalwork, as seen in figure 13. Well before the 17th century, artists
and engravers recognized them as intriguing shapes to include in any
potpourri of instruments, either in cartouches or the frontispieces of
books (fig. 14).

[Illustration: Figure 19.--1855: THE FRONTISPIECE FROM EDWARD SHAW, _The
Modern Architect_ (Boston, 1855), shows the carpenter's dividers in the
foreground unchanged in form from those illustrated in figure 18. Of
further interest in Shaw's plate is the dress of the workmen and the
balloon frame of the house under construction. (Smithsonian photo
49792-A.)]

The two pairs of cabinetmaker's dividers illustrated in figures 15 and
16 suggest significant changes in the design of a basic tool. The
dividers shown in figure 15 are English and would seem to be of early
18th-century origin, perhaps even earlier. They are Renaissance in
feeling with decorated legs and a heart-shaped stop on the end of the
slide-arm. In character, they are like the great dividers shown in
figure 13: functional, but at the same time preserving in their
decoration the features common to a wide variety of ironwork and wares
beyond the realm of tools alone. The dividers pictured in figure 16 are
a decided contrast. Dated 1783, they are strongly suggestive of
Sheffield origin. Gone is the superfluous decoration; in its place is
the strong, crisp line of a tool that has reached nearly the ultimate of
function and manufacture, a device which both in general appearance and
precise design is very modern in execution. Equally intriguing are the
smaller, more slender dividers (accession 319557) of the 18th-century
house-builder as seen in figure 18, a form that changed very little, if
at all, until after 1850--a fact confirmed by the frontispiece of Edward
Shaw's _The Modern Architect_, published in Boston in 1855 (fig. 19).
The double calipers of the woodturner (fig. 20) have by far the most
appealing and ingenious design of all such devices. Designed for
convenience, few tools illustrate better the aesthetic of the purely
functional than this pair of 19th-century American calipers.

[Illustration: Figure 20.--EARLY 19TH CENTURY: THE DOUBLE CALIPERS of
the woodturner permitted double readings to be taken without changing
the set of the tool. Inherent in this practical design is a gracefulness
of line seldom surpassed. (Private collection. Smithsonian photo
49793-C.)]

[Illustration: Figure 21.--1704: