Figure 47.—18th century: The visually pleasing qualities of walnut and brass provide a level of response to this joiner's bevel quite apart from its technical significance. (Private collection. Smithsonian photo 49793-B.)
Figure 48.—18th century: The handle of the compass saw, characteristically Dutch in shape, is an outstanding example of a recurring functional design, one which varied according to the hand of the sawer. (Smithsonian photo 49789-C.)
Henry Ward Beecher, impressed by the growing sophistication of the toolmakers, described the hand tool in a most realistic and objective manner as an "extension of a man's hand." The antiquarian, attuned to more subjective and romantic appraisals, will find this hardly sufficient. Look at the upholsterer's hammer (accession 61.35) seen in figure 45: there is no question that it is a response to a demanding task that required an efficient and not too forceful extension of the workman's hand. But there is another response to this implement: namely, the admiration for an unknown toolmaker who combined in an elementary striking tool a hammerhead of well-weighted proportion to be wielded gently through the medium of an extremely delicate handle. In short, here is an object about whose provenance one need know very little in order to enjoy it aesthetically. In a like manner, the 18th-century bitstock of Flemish origin (fig. 46), the English cabinetmaker's bevel of the same century (fig. 47), and the compass saw (accession 61.52, fig. 48) capture in their basic design something beyond the functional extension of the craftsman's hand. The slow curve of the bitstock, never identical from one early example to another, is lost in later factory-made versions; so too, with the coming of cheap steel, does the combination of wood (walnut) and brass used in the cabinetmaker's bevel slowly disappear; and, finally, in the custom-fitted pistol-like grip of the saw, there is an identity, in feeling at least, between craftsman and tool never quite achieved in later mass-produced versions.
Figure 49.—Early 19th century: The designation "gentleman's tool chest" required a chest of "high-style" but necessitated no change in the tools it held. (Book 87, Cutler and Company, Castle Hill Works, Sheffield. Courtesy of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Figure 50.—19th century: The screwdriver, which began to appear regularly on the woodworker's bench after 1800, did not share the long evolution and tradition of other Anglo-American tool designs. The screwdriver in its early versions frequently had a scalloped blade for no other purpose than decoration. (Smithsonian photo 49794.)
Figure 51.—1870: The use of a new material prompted a departure from the traditional in shape and encouraged surface elaboration. The tendency, however, was short lived and the mass-produced metallic plane rapidly achieved a purity of design as pleasing as its wooden predecessors. (Private collection. Smithsonian photo 49789.)