Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature may not be available in some browsers.
Largest Manufacturing Technology Community on the Web
Stay Connected:
Can anyone here tell me about this shop painting ? (pic)
- Thread starter Milacron
- Start date
- Replies 27
- Views 3,773
DanLinsch
Aluminum
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2012
- Location
- Salem, Oregon
Joe Michaels
Diamond
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Location
- Shandaken, NY, USA
I looked up the Wikipedia entry for Jean-Eugene Buland. The painting is called "the lesson of the apprentice" (as translated by Wiki from the French title). The painting was done in 1888. The shop depicted in the painting was somewhat advanced for a blacksmith shop of that era, having what appears to have been a power driven line shaft. Could have had a waterwheel or steam engine for power, or maybe even a treadmill for a horse.
Interesting combination of a fore-runner of the camelback drill with an added mounting for a vise. The anchor bolts holding the drill to the shop floor have large square nuts, which would have been common at that time. The apprentice looks like a 10 year old boy, while the master looks like he is a weatherbeaten oldtimer. When I first saw the picture, I thought the scene depicted was somewhere in Eastern Europe, maybe in Russia. I was surprised to learn it depicted a French blacksmith shop.
Thanks for posting a great old picture.
Interesting combination of a fore-runner of the camelback drill with an added mounting for a vise. The anchor bolts holding the drill to the shop floor have large square nuts, which would have been common at that time. The apprentice looks like a 10 year old boy, while the master looks like he is a weatherbeaten oldtimer. When I first saw the picture, I thought the scene depicted was somewhere in Eastern Europe, maybe in Russia. I was surprised to learn it depicted a French blacksmith shop.
Thanks for posting a great old picture.
Chris Lesiak
Aluminum
- Joined
- Aug 10, 2004
- Location
- Lincoln, Nebraska USA
Zoom in on the master's face. You can just imagine his thoughts as he stares down at the new hole in the drill press table.
rklopp
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 27, 2001
- Location
- Redwood City, CA USA
What is that thing that looks like a Ridgid brand shop vac fanning the forge? It's an orange thing up on a shelf on the rear wall above and to the right of the forge hood.
bryan_machine
Diamond
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2006
- Location
- Near Seattle
Likely a leather bellows - but that high up, one would guess it was pumped by the line shaft.
4GSR
Diamond
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2005
- Location
- Victoria, Texas, USA
Original version of the Ridgid Shop Vac.
Before the days of available electricity.magneticanomaly
Titanium
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2007
- Location
- On Elk Mountain, West Virginia, USA
Lovely painting, that leaves me with some questions.
I think I see drill-press table elevating rack on front of column, and the end of the pinion shaft. Crank would be on other side of table support arm. But the sliding handle on the side facing us puzzles me. If it is the table clamp, what is the mechanism? It is in wrong place to squeeze togther a split sleeve. There could be a big pad on the end of a set-screw, but no obvious swelling on the casting to accommodate it.
The nuts holding the base to floor look awfully large. And I wonder what kind of floor the studs would have been anchored in, back then. And what about the fifth nut in the middle of the front of the base? Were machines anchored before concrete floors?
The whole machine looks very short...the smith, after all, is kneeling. Artist's license to fir everything in?
I think I see a belt from the largest of the cone-pullleys running forward....odd to have the jackshaft over the operator's head. But what about the crank on the end of the shaft? Maybe it has a jaw-clutch and a spring holds it out of engagement so it does not whirl around when the machine runs?
Looks like a two-jaw reamer chuck on the spindle.
I think I see drill-press table elevating rack on front of column, and the end of the pinion shaft. Crank would be on other side of table support arm. But the sliding handle on the side facing us puzzles me. If it is the table clamp, what is the mechanism? It is in wrong place to squeeze togther a split sleeve. There could be a big pad on the end of a set-screw, but no obvious swelling on the casting to accommodate it.
The nuts holding the base to floor look awfully large. And I wonder what kind of floor the studs would have been anchored in, back then. And what about the fifth nut in the middle of the front of the base? Were machines anchored before concrete floors?
The whole machine looks very short...the smith, after all, is kneeling. Artist's license to fir everything in?
I think I see a belt from the largest of the cone-pullleys running forward....odd to have the jackshaft over the operator's head. But what about the crank on the end of the shaft? Maybe it has a jaw-clutch and a spring holds it out of engagement so it does not whirl around when the machine runs?
Looks like a two-jaw reamer chuck on the spindle.
1yesca
Stainless
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2004
keep in mind it is french
Scottl
Diamond
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2013
- Location
- Eastern Massachusetts, USA
It's hard to tell because the detail is a bit blurry but my guess is a painted metal bucket that likely holds something like flux for forge welding and gravity feeds through a metal pipe, likely regulated by something similar to a blast gate on a dust collector system.
Jim Christie
Titanium
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2007
- Location
- L'Orignal, Ontario Canada
The drill press appears to be what is a generally referred to in French under the classification of blacksmith's drill or Perceuse de Forgeron .
It looks like there may be a logo or builders name that is not clear in an oval cast into the frame of the machine a few inches above the boy's thumb .
Perhaps someone can enlarge it enough so someone might recognize it.
I found a few examples of similar styled machines in some searches I tried.
OUTILS ANCIENS - ART POPULAIRE :: Anciennes machines de forgeron
Perceuse de forgeron
This one hand operated only
Perceuse a colonne (a main) trouve par Arbredevie sur L'Air du Bois
vielle machines outils a courroie de Forgeron
That's all I can add so far.
Maybe it will give someone else some clues to make a more accurate identification .
Jim
It looks like there may be a logo or builders name that is not clear in an oval cast into the frame of the machine a few inches above the boy's thumb .
Perhaps someone can enlarge it enough so someone might recognize it.
I found a few examples of similar styled machines in some searches I tried.
OUTILS ANCIENS - ART POPULAIRE :: Anciennes machines de forgeron
Perceuse de forgeron
This one hand operated only
Perceuse a colonne (a main) trouve par Arbredevie sur L'Air du Bois
vielle machines outils a courroie de Forgeron
That's all I can add so far.
Maybe it will give someone else some clues to make a more accurate identification .
Jim
atomarc
Diamond
- Joined
- Mar 16, 2009
- Location
- Eureka, CA
Amusing, but certainly impossible, it looks like the young fellow is wearing athletic shoes...Nike's or Puma's or something that resembles them.
Stuart
Stuart
Scottl
Diamond
- Joined
- Nov 3, 2013
- Location
- Eastern Massachusetts, USA
When I zoomed in at 400% it looks like he is wearing a moccasin type shoe made out of some kind of heavy fabric, possibly remnants of an old carpet. There is a very good chance the shoes were made by the boy's mother, as leather shoes from a cobbler were probably quite expensive.
Greg Menke
Diamond
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2004
- Location
- Baltimore, MD, USA
I think the large object on the drills base is something like a large pipe plug, a workpiece just placed there.
99Panhard
Stainless
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2006
- Location
- Smithfield, Rhode Island
The chuck in the drill press looks very familiar. I not only have one very similar, I use it occasionally because it's the only chuck I have that opens larger than 3/4". If I remember correctly, the patent date on it is 1878.
99Panhard
Stainless
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2006
- Location
- Smithfield, Rhode Island
I think you are spot on. Not only were shoes expensive (they still are in France) but wearing them in a shop environment would have worn them out quickly. Wooden shoes were being used right through the 19th century by workmen,
One thing moderns seem to miss is that, until fairly recently, all clothes were relatively much more expensive. In the 18th century robberies in Hyde Park in London were frequently committed by off-duty soldiers in uniform...because they had no other clothes. In the aftermath of the Civil War the huge supply of Federal uniforms was sold off as cheap workmen's clothing. It was so commonplace that regular officers complained that every road crew looked like army convicts...and that it was disparaging to the real army. The long term effect of this is that enlisted men's uniforms from the CW are quite rare while officer's uniforms (of which far fewer were made) are fairly common. Officers had to buy their own uniforms so they took them home...enlisted men got to keep the clothes they were mustered out in but most probably wore them out working after the war.
Last edited:
1yesca
Stainless
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2004
Marty Feldman
Titanium
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2005
- Location
- Falmouth, Maine
Year 1888
Year 1888:
This picture which hangs in my office, is nowhere near as beautiful or
compelling as "The lesson of the apprentice",but the date, written in my
Grandfather's hand on the back is an interesting connection.
P.L.D.Petersen was born in Odense in 1881, and apprenticed in the
Blacksmith trade from 1895 to 1898 under a Smith named Rasmussen.
We know of no connection with the shop in this unsigned print other than
that it always hung in his living room as a reminder of the old country.
P.L.D. immigrated to minnesota in 1905 and established his shop in 1918
which I and my sons and grandsons continue in today.
petersen
Year 1888:
This picture which hangs in my office, is nowhere near as beautiful or
compelling as "The lesson of the apprentice",but the date, written in my
Grandfather's hand on the back is an interesting connection.
P.L.D.Petersen was born in Odense in 1881, and apprenticed in the
Blacksmith trade from 1895 to 1898 under a Smith named Rasmussen.
We know of no connection with the shop in this unsigned print other than
that it always hung in his living room as a reminder of the old country.
P.L.D. immigrated to minnesota in 1905 and established his shop in 1918
which I and my sons and grandsons continue in today.
petersen
Last edited:
