MECHANICAL DREAMS, THE TICKING.

This article, published in Grenoble Magazine, deals with Francis Lara, director of the wonderful Museum of automatons settled in Grenoble, France. A replica of Vaucanson's mechanical duck, created by Frédéric Vidoni, is part of the numerous automatons exhibited in this museum.

Charles Perregaux and F.Louis Perrot, authors of the book "Les Jaquet-Droz et Leschot ", say: "We know about the three automata of 1774, but we have not yet mentionned a fourth room for automata which was built at that time and which was surely very interesting and sophisticated: THE GROTTO".

MUSIC AT THE ROYAL COURT UNDER LOUIS XVI

Olivier ROUX, a specialist in mechanical music, automatons and a producer of musical broadcasts on Radio France, expresses his opinion about the various tunes of baroque music performed by Mariane, the automaton-android created by the Jaquet-Droz family.

PHINEAS-T.BARNUM (1810-1891)

Called "The great Barnum", he created the Barnum-Baily's circus as well as the "American Museum", one of his great works. According to him, there were in the building about 100.000 unusual attractions, such as various living beings (giants, dwarfs, albino, ventriloquists), animals (like dogs and performing fleas) along with dioramas and a wide range of sophisticated automata."

JEAN FREDERIC LESCHOT

The Jaquet-Drozes and their partner Jean Frédéric Leschot, began to create along with traditional automata, automaton-clocks and mechanical birds with artificial limbs replacing the amputated limbs. J.-F. Leschot specialised in this work and received through his reputation a lot of orders from many foreign countries.

HISTORY OF THE MUSIC BOX

Etienne Blyelle, the president of the Conservatoire Autonome des Boites à Musique (Independant Conservatory of Music Boxes) explains in his technical and musical dictionary what a music box is, how it works and its history.
Conservatoire autonome des boites à musique :
11, Pont d'Arve CH 1205 Genève - Suisse.