The Draughtsman presents several similarities with the Writer, however his mechanism is less complex.
He was conceived between 1772 to 1774 by Henri-Louis Jaquet-droz with the assistance of his collaborators.
This small wonder leans his left arm on the paper, contrary to the Writer, the paper will not move during the operation.
Gracefully holding a pencil with his right hand, the
artist can draw the following pictures: "Love Trained by a Butterfly";
"A Dog Named Toutou", "A Portrait of Louis XV; and "A
portrait of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette".
click on the animation
Description of the mechanism :
The device is composed of two parts.
The first part, located in the higher region of the body, acts upon a
cylinder with three sets of cams which make it possible to obtain a neat
sketch.
The other part, located below, moves the cylinder vertically.
The movement of the hand is produced by the combination of two rectangular displacements at various speeds.
With each turn of the cam a fragment of the drawing is carried out.
The model is an engraving on metal, in which the depth and the thickness of the hollows are strongly accentuated.
The head of the Draughtsman has a device which the Writer lacks. It is a bellows, which sends air into the mouth of the small artist, who during the stops intended for the change of cams, blows on his sketch to clean it of any dust.