ABSTRACT
Optical Science made its first impact on the recording of Ethiopian images in the late eighteenth century, when the Scottish traveller James Bruce obtained a camera obscura. A cumbersome affair, it was constructed according to his specifications by a London firm, and was both “large and expensive”. Hexagonal in shape, and six feet in diameter, it comprised two separate units, which folded together. The draftsman sat within, and drew without being seen. The instrument was valuable, he claims, for it enabled a person with limited drawing skill to draw buildings with rapidity, and achieve better work in an hour than the finest draftsman could, without it, do in seven. The resultant picture had the “inestimable advantage” of being “real”, rather than imaginary, and was so detailed that passing clouds, and even the folds of peoples’ dresses, could be indicated.
