9/23/2023 0 Comments Clockwork automaton exalted![]() Like the automaton and the singing bird box, the first music boxes date to the 18th century, when inventors obsession with clockwork mechanisms was at its height. These mechanical wonders soon became highly coveted objects of luxury entertainment for the wealthy classes, setting the stage for major technological developments to come. Although the clock in place today dates to the 19th century, fragments of earlier clocks are kept in the Strasbourg Museum for Decorative Arts, including the 14th-century gilded rooster, which is considered the oldest preserved automaton in the world.Īs clockmakers of the 17th and 18th centuries invented increasingly more complex clockwork mechanisms, they turned their attention to other challenges in the form of automata, bird boxes and music boxes. In one particularly poignant group of figures, the twelve apostles parade before Jesus, who is depicted blessing each in turn. ![]() ![]() The addition of the moving figures made the religious message of the timepiece and its setting more vivid. First built in 1352-54, it was later reconstructed in 1571-74 and featured several mechanical figures, as well as a calendar, orrery and other astronomical complexities. The Strasbourg astronomical clock located in the Cathédrale Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is exemplary of the close ties between the development of the clock and the automaton. In fact, the link between the clock and the automaton is seen as early as 3000 B.C.E., when Egyptian water clocks were equipped with human figurines possessing the ability to strike a bell on the hour. The same highly complex clockwork mechanisms that powered the great timepieces of the 16th and 17th centuries informed the creation of later automata, singing bird boxes and music boxes. ![]() The history of musical machines is inextricably linked to the history of clocks. ![]()
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