Skip to content
History of Science Museum

Model of Wren's Machine for Drawing Perspective

Inventory Number 10102


Acknowledgement: © History of Science Museum, University of Oxford, inv.10102

Brief Description
A model of Christopher Wren's perspective machine, this was presumably commissioned by the first curator of the Museum R.T. Gunther in the 1920s or ‘30s. Wren's design was published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, 4 (1669), 898-899 as "The Description of an Instrument Invented Divers Years Ago by Dr. Christopher Wren, for Drawing the Out-Lines of Any Object in Perspective" (<a HREF="https://www.jstor.org/stable/100986">JSTOR link</a>).
Item type
Object
Object type
Drawing instrument
Dimensions
Height: 485mm Width: 586mm Depth: 452mm Weight: 2.9kg
Inventory No
10102

Description

A wooden rectangle held vertically by two wooden rods with square cross sections that pass through the bottom corners of the rectangle. Mounted on the rectangle is an illustration of St Pauls Cathedral. Attached to the rectangle are various arms including a vertical metal rod holding a circular wooden disc. There is also a lead weight coated in copper alloy.