Our Embellished Manuscripts Collection celebrates human creativity and ingenuity, making scientists and inventors ideal cover subjects. This season we’re excited to bring a sketch by Nikola Tesla to the Paperblanks catalogue – not only as a hardcover journal, but a softcover Flexi and pencil case too!
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, futurist and electrical and mechanical engineer, and our new design honouring him features a sketch of his turbine research. The sketch was done by Tesla himself and prepared for his draftsman, Diaz R. Buitrago, between 1895 and 1912 in his New York laboratory. It is an example of one of the thousands of original documents held in the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade.
What’s particularly special about this sketch is that it stands as one of very few drafted by Tesla himself. The inventor rarely put his ideas down on paper, relying instead on his innate ability to visualize objects and buildings in very fine detail, using only his imagination.
Tesla was once most famous for his contribution to the design of the alternating current (AC) electrical system, but since the 1990s there has been a massive resurgence of interest in his work.
His legacy endures in popular culture and technology, most notably Tesla, Inc., which specializes in electric vehicles, solar panels and lithium-ion batteries.
