Lacaille’s Sculptor
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille’s version of Sculptor was published in 1756 under the name l’Atelier du Sculpteur. It depicted the sculptor’s tools (a mallet and two chisels) on a block of marble next to a table upon which rests a carved bust. On the second edition of Lacaille’s map published in 1763 the name was Latinized to Apparatus Sculptoris. Johann Bode expropriated the area containing the block of marble to create his new (but short-lived) constellation Machina Electrica, leaving just the bust and the table, onto which he transferred the tools. This illustration comes from a copy of Lacaille’s map published in the Atlas Céleste of Jean-Baptiste Fortin.
(Image: Author’s collection)
