The Last Honors to Counts Egmont and Hoorne, reduction (Les derniers honneurs rendus aux Comtes d'Egmont et d'Hornes, réduction)
1 of 5
Object Label
This rare surviving model of an adjustable chair was part of the process to secure a patent in the United States in the late nineteenth century. There were two types of patents: utility, or technical, patents and design patents. The later was for two-dimensional inventions such as carpet and textile designs. The former, more common type was for all other inventions, both mechanical and scientific. The patent process required three elements: a scaled, fully functional model not more than one foot square, detailed line drawings, and a letter describing the innovation. Inventors usually hired a lawyer to help secure the patent, and the lawyer in turn had contacts with professional model makers and draftsmen to render the detailed models and drawings. Once approved, the patent was good for up to seventeen years.
The government then placed the patent models on display in the United States Patent Office Building in Washington, D.C.
The requirement for the model was abandoned in the late 1880s, and the government sold off the vast majority of the models in the early twentieth century, thereby losing a visual history of late nineteenth-century technology.
Caption
Louis Gallait Belgian, 1810–1887. The Last Honors to Counts Egmont and Hoorne, reduction (Les derniers honneurs rendus aux Comtes d'Egmont et d'Hornes, réduction), 1859. Oil on panel, 13 3/4 × 20 × 14 in. (34.9 × 50.8 × 35.5 cm) frame: 20 1/4 × 26 1/4 × 2 in. (51.4 × 66.7 × 5.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of A. Augustus Healy and Frank Healy in memory of Aaron Healy, 00.62. No known copyright restrictions (Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 00.62_SL1.jpg)
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Gallery
Not on view
Collection
Artist
Title
The Last Honors to Counts Egmont and Hoorne, reduction (Les derniers honneurs rendus aux Comtes d'Egmont et d'Hornes, réduction)
Date
1859
Geography
Place made: Belgium
Medium
Oil on panel
Classification
Dimensions
13 3/4 × 20 × 14 in. (34.9 × 50.8 × 35.5 cm) frame: 20 1/4 × 26 1/4 × 2 in. (51.4 × 66.7 × 5.1 cm)
Signatures
Signed and dated lower left: "Louis Gallait/1859"
Credit Line
Gift of A. Augustus Healy and Frank Healy in memory of Aaron Healy
Accession Number
00.62
Rights
No known copyright restrictions
This work may be in the public domain in the United States. Works created by United States and non-United States nationals published prior to 1923 are in the public domain, subject to the terms of any applicable treaty or agreement. You may download and use Brooklyn Museum images of this work. Please include caption information from this page and credit the Brooklyn Museum. If you need a high resolution file, please fill out our online application form (charges apply). The Museum does not warrant that the use of this work will not infringe on the rights of third parties, such as artists or artists' heirs holding the rights to the work. It is your responsibility to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions before copying, transmitting, or making other use of protected items beyond that allowed by "fair use," as such term is understood under the United States Copyright Act. The Brooklyn Museum makes no representations or warranties with respect to the application or terms of any international agreement governing copyright protection in the United States for works created by foreign nationals. For further information about copyright, we recommend resources at the United States Library of Congress, Cornell University, Copyright and Cultural Institutions: Guidelines for U.S. Libraries, Archives, and Museums, and Copyright Watch. For more information about the Museum's rights project, including how rights types are assigned, please see our blog posts on copyright. If you have any information regarding this work and rights to it, please contact copyright@brooklynmuseum.org.
Have information?
Have information about an artwork? Contact us at
