The folding bookstand in A.-J. Roubo’s “l’Art du menuisier” is nice, but not nearly as fancy as the one I unearthed today while reorganizing my office.
This bookstand is shown in “L’Enseignement Professionnel du Menuisier” (book 1) by Léon Jamin. Jamin is listed at an “ancien collaborateur au Roubo,” but I don’t know enough about Jamin to say what that really means.
I purchased an original copy of the plates from this 19th-century book for professional woodworkers, and it is a delight to page through. One of the owners of the book performed all the recommended exercises on the backs of the plates, which are almost as fascinating as the plates themselves.
In this plate, No. 32, the author is illustrating how to draw the bookstand in perspective. The three images here are joined to one another at the edges, making for a complete exploration of all the details of the bookstand.
I don’t own a copystand (yet) for my camera, so I have included three high-resolution scans here for you to play with. Feel free to stitch the images together.
— Christopher Schwarz
