Craft
Design
Historical past
#automata
#birds
#kinetic sculpture
#steel
#metalwork
Within the 250 years since its fabrication within the studio of jeweler and entrepreneur James Cox, the “Silver Swan” automaton has beguiled audience. The mechanical sculpture continues to reside as much as its authentic function, designed as a crowd-puller to the artist’s workshop in 18th-century London, which additionally served as a small museum. As of late, it’s an iconic resident of the The Bowes Museum at Barnard Fortress in County Durham, U.Okay.
Cox modeled the life-size creature on a feminine swan, incorporating 2,000 transferring portions, together with 139 crystal rods and 113 neck rings. A slew of subtle items are encased in chased, repoussé silver, operated by means of 3 clockwork mechanisms that keep an eye on a tune field, a pool of glass with swimming silver fish, and the advanced actions of the swan’s head and neck. On the 1867 Paris Global Exhibition, its huge scale and hefty price ticket of fifty,000 francs—as of late, that might be neatly over $200,000—created a sensation. 5 years later, the museum’s namesake, John Bowes, purchased it in Paris for a 10th of that worth and taken it house to the U.Okay.
In a video produced in 2021, a expert crew of conservators and curators painstakingly dismantled the sculpture to inspect the situation of its mechanisms and create a plan for its preservation. This yr, the swan is present process meticulous upkeep and cleansing, and the museum anticipates that the paintings will likely be finished by means of the tip of the yr.
Cox additionally designed the well known “Peacock Clock” for Catherine the Nice, a treasure of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. Be told extra concerning the “Silver Swan” on The Bowes Museum’s web page. (by the use of The Child Must See This)
All photographs © The Bowes Museum
#automata
#birds
#kinetic sculpture
#steel
#metalwork
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