Automatons
By Darrell Clarke
G'day all,
I haven't posted for some time, so I thought I would try to answer some of Damon Atchison's questions about the French dolls. One that I have seen and heard playing was in the Science Museum in Paris in 1987 and she (18th century doll) played an instrument like a Zither (dulcimer?) with little hammers and was supposed to have belonged to Marie Antionette. I believe such mechanical humans were known as automatons before robots were fashionable. I have also seen a similar doll in Switzerland which could write a few words with pen and paper. From memory, these dolls were operated by clockwork using cams and wires and were made in Switzerland, France and possibly Germany in the 18th and 19th centuries. On the musical side, I have also seen and heard an 18th cent. water (?) powered organ at the Scho"nbrunn (sp) palace in Saltzburg, Austria. I suspect the organ was pneumatic, driven by a water powered pump because it didn't make gurgling noises, but was in an amazing garden where everything was run by water! It must have had some primitive mechanism to store the tunes but unfortunately I was not able to find out how they did it. Has anyone else seen it? Those early "mechanics" were amazingly skilful, taking into account the tools and materials available at the time.
Cheers,
Darrell |
(Message sent Fri 29 Nov 1996, 00:13:00 GMT, from time zone GMT+1030.) |
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