The Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, 1903 – Porcelain Art Mug

A machine of spruce, ash and muslin is a foot or two above the sand, and the man at the right is Wilbur, standing where his run ended. Orville is lying prone at the controls, on his stomach, hips in the cradle that warped the wings. Behind them the launch rail runs back across the beach — a single wooden track laid on the flat. It is 10:35 in the morning of 17 December 1903, at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and the wind is coming in cold off the Atlantic.

The photograph exists because Orville set it up before he flew. He put the camera on a tripod, aimed it at the spot where he expected the machine to leave the rail, and showed John T. Daniels of the Kill Devil Hill lifesaving station how and when to snap the shutter. Daniels had never seen a camera before. He squeezed the bulb at exactly the right moment and afterwards was not certain he had squeezed it at all.

The flight lasted twelve seconds and covered 120 feet — shorter than the wingspan of an airliner. Three more followed that morning, each longer than the last; the fourth stayed up 59 seconds. Then a gust caught the machine on the ground and rolled it over, and it never flew again.

The negative is a glass dry plate, 18 by 12.5 centimetres. It stayed with the brothers and is held today in their own papers at the Library of Congress.

The plate is damaged: a corner is broken away at the lower left and the emulsion is lost in two places along the bottom edge. Rather than paint them out, the mug carries a cropped frame that leaves them off the sheet. The picture gives up the far end of the launch rail and gains nothing that was not on the plate.

The fourth product image shows four details at close range: Orville at the controls, Wilbur beside the wing, the launch rail on the sand, and the tools left standing where the run began.

Fine Porcelain — 10 oz. Dishwasher and microwave safe.

First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 a.m.; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, 17 December 1903. Photograph by John T. Daniels, camera set by Orville Wright. Glass negative from the Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppprs-00626. No known restrictions on publication.

Selected by Dr. Walther Fuchs for the Tazzarte collection.