Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.10116
    Looking for a special gift? Buy a print of this image.

    Heckling of hemp plant fibre

    Date
    1804
    Creator
    Richard Reeve (1780, British) , Printmaker
    Object type
    Library reference
    Tracts/X99/4
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 210mm
    width (print): 270mm
    Subject
    Biology
       > Botany
    Content object
    nature
       > plant
    Description
    Illustration of the process of heckling hemp to separate the plant fibres. The fibres were subjected to repeated combing by different grades of heckle [comb] to prepare the material for use in rope-making or cloth-production. The scene shows workmen processing the plant and this is surmounted by a decorative border with hemp plants Cannabis sativa, heckling combs, scutches and other equipment.

    Plate 5 in the monograph On the cultivation and preparation of hemp; as also of an article produced in various parts of India...by Robert Wissett (London, 1804).

    Inscribed “Pl.5. Etch’d by Reeve. Heckling”.

    Robert Wissett (d.1820), Clerk to the Committee of Warehouses of the East India Company, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1801.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > India
    Powered by CollectionsIndex+/CollectionsOnline