Electric Egg

The electric egg lies at the intersection of two technologies: high vacuum and high
voltage. By the eighteen sixties vacuum pumps, and induction coils and electrostatic
machines (including Wimshurst and Voss machines) had developed to the point where it
was possible to create an electrical discharge in the residual gas between two small
spheres in the evacuated space. Gassiot's Shower is another example of an electrical
discharge between two electrodes in a near vacuum. Unlike Geissler tubes, which are
evacuated and sealed off, electric eggs are pumped out each time, the valve closed, and
the tube placed back on its foot for the demonstration. The upper electrode can be slid up
and down through a leather-lined and greased packing to change the length of the
discharge. With residual air, the glow is bluish, but other gases and liquids can be
introduced into the egg to give different colors of discharge. Some of the eggs have hooks
on the upper electrodes, to allow them to be hung from one conductor of the high-voltage
source.
The egg in the Amherst College Collection was made by E. Ducretet and Company of
Paris.

Amherst College
Smithsonian Institution

Glasgow University

Note that the electric egg in the middle below is made from uranium glass, with is also
present in the Gassiot's Shower cup.
The left-hand example is by Apps of London, and is not a true electric egg. A very similar
piece is shown at a price of $6.00 in the 1856 catalogue of Benjamin Pike, Jr. of New
York, who may have imported the apparatus. The electrodes are made of carbon, and
adjusted until they almost touch. After the globe is filled with chlorine gas, an electric arc
is struck between the electrodes, which glow red hot. The chlorine is unaffected by the
heating of the electrodes.

Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College
The upper
electric egg is at
Bates College in
Maine, and was
made by
Chamberlain of
Boston. This firm
became
Chamberlain and
Ritchie by 1854,

Wittenberg University

which sets an
upper bound to its
age.
The lower
example is from
St. Mary's
College in Notre
Dame, Indiana.

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late 18th cent.
Materials:
mahogany, glass, brass
Dimensions:
total height 580 mm
Inventory:
Aurora tube (Inv. 1203)
This device was used to simulate the aurora borealis
phenomenon.
The glass tube is supported on a glass pillar, with a
turned mahogany base, weighted by means of a lead
ring to prevent the instrument from toppling over. A
brass spike projects at right angles from the upper
brass collar. A ball electrode is joined to the lower
brass collar. Inside the tube are two other electrodes:
the upper one ends in a point, the lower one in a
ball.
The tube is partially evacuated by means of an air pump. The glass is then rubbed with a
cloth or the electrodes are touched with the conductor of an electrical machine. The
electrification causes the inside of the tube to glow with a light closely resembling an
aurora borealis.

William Henley used a comparable instrument to demonstrate the glow produced by

positive or negative discharges. He claimed this as proving Benjamin Franklin's theory of
a single electric fluid. Filippo Lucci depicted a very similar device in the Stanzino of the
Matematiche of the Uffizi in 1780clear evidence of the popularity of such
demonstrations in the late eighteenth century. Provenance: Lorraine collections.

late 18th cent.

Materials:
glass, brass, lead
foil
Dimensions:
total height 275
mm, max. diameter 94
mm
Inventory:
423
Aurora flask (Inv.
423)
Pear-shaped glass
vessel with central brass spike and threaded brass collar, covered by a cap. The outer half
of the flask is covered with lead foil (originally tin foil).
This device was used to simulate the aurora borealis phenomenon. The flask was
connected to an air pump and partially evacuated. It was then electrified by means of the
prime conductor of an electrical machine. The glow produced at the spike, which greatly
resembled an aurora borealis, behaved differently for positive and negative electrical
charges. Provenance: Lorraine collections.
Miroslav Tichs haunting snapshots of girls in various Czech parks are here,
too,symptoms of a Blue Velvet-ish kind of curiosity,though theyre maybe most peculiar
intheir technical provenance, as they were caught on a homemade camera builtfrom
cardboard and salvaged glass. Dating from between 1950 and 1980, they recall 19thcentury spiritualist photographs, their subjects resemble wraiths peering outof a toxic
mist. Tich was possibly the first person to detect the erotic properties of shadows.
Nina Canells The New Mineral (2009) might be a newly discovered readymadeby
Marcel Duchamp: a reconstructionof an early radiometer built by the Victorian occultist
William Crooks, it consists of dimly glowing light-bulbs on broomsticks, all but one
containing dreamily twirling spindles. Oddly exemplary of much of the exhibition, this
piece occupies some seductive, mysterious territory between weird science experiment
and darkly metaphorical, uncanny invention.

The version of contemporary art that Curiosity suggests is one which takesa sly joy in
playing with science like a Surrealist playing with a journalist, feeding it metaphysical
riddles it cant comprehend: see, for instance, Toril Johannessensimpossible graphs,
transformations of data into exquisitely meaningless abstractions that purport to record
Love and Logic inArt or Miracles in Nature and Science (2011). Elsewhere, theres a
section of Agencys sombre archive project Curiosity (Assembly) (1992ongoing). Row
upon row of boxes are neatly serried to the ceiling, their contents indexed but history
obscure; a typical box contains a telephone directory, a copy of Jean Genets The Thiefs
Journal (1949) and The Magicians Coat Sequence.