Bertrand Guillaume Carcel, French Inventor

Lithograph of painting depicting Carcel demonstrating the lamp he invented to his sons, by B. De Monvel. The Carcel lamp was invented in 1800 by the clockmaker Bertrand Guillaume Carcel ( 1750-1812). It consists of a lamp lit with vegetable oil via a pump driven by a clockwork mechanism wound up by a key. The clockwork kept the delivery of oil steady and constant for almost ten hours. The Carcel is a former French unit for measuring the intensity of light. The unit was defined in 1860 as the intensity of a Carcel lamp with standard burner and chimney dimensions

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1750 1812 Bertrand Carcel Clockmaker Clockwork Guillaume Intensity Measurement Mechanism

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