Beschreibung:

Important Gold and Enamel Signed Singing Bird Box by Jaquet-Droz & Leschot, London, circa 1785, the bird with iridescent blue, green and red plumage, moving bone beak, wings, and tail, the swiveling perch chased to simulate a golden bough in floriate-engraved "garden" or grille with scalloped edge and bird-shaped recess, with gilt-brass chain-drive fusee movement, turned pillars, circular bellows, polished steel stop-work, brass wheelwork, steel pinions, two-blade fan, and stack of eight cams operating four automaton movements and complex four-part bird song, in deep-blue guilloche enameled gold case with right-side winding aperture, and sliding lock for lid, hinged snuff compartment in base, two-tier seed pearl-set lid opening to reveal foliate-pierced and engraved gold mask signed in ellipses on each side Jaq.t Droz & Leschot, London, and oval enameled outer lid depicting pensive girl with clasped hands mourning the death of her white dove beside its empty cage, wd. 3 1/2 x ht. 1 /38 x dp. 2 1/8 in. Note: Readily accessible biographical information on Jaquet-Droz can be found in Arthur W.J.G. Ord-Hume, The Musical Clock, page 302. A nearly identical example is found in Alfred Chapuis and Edmond Droz, Automata, pl. V, opposite pg. 80 and pp. 195-196. Another box and additional biographical information is found in George Daniels & Ohannes Markarian's Watches & Clocks in the Sir David Salomons Collection, pps. 278, 279, and 283. The depiction of the forlorn girl with clasped hands is also seen on a box by Jacob Frisard, the lost bird having been reincarnated in mechanical form on the inside of the box, as illustrated in Daniels & Markarian, pp. 288 and 304-305. The invention of the singing bird box, with sliding piston for the bird whistle, is attributed to Pierre Jaquet-Droz (1721-1790) in partnership with Jean-Frederic Leschot and Jacob Frisard. Prior to this, the audio illusion of bird song was created by organ pipes of the type used in serinetts, the miniature mechanical table organs which were anecdotally used in the 18th century to teach canaries to sing, (see Lot 596). The magician and automaton maker, Robert Houdin, depicts such a scene in an automaton illustrated in Chapuis and Droz, p. 207. Jaquet-Droz himself is most celebrated as the creator of the three life-sized "android" figures, the Draftsman, Writer and Lady Musician, at Neuchatel, which are arguably the inspiration of the later automata of the French golden age. The initials on the case identify this as the work of Jean-Georges-Remond (active c. 1783-1820), one of the finest snuff box makers of his generation, who later went on to form the company Georges Remond & Cie. Jaquet-Droz singing bird boxes are rarely offered at public sale, the last example appearing almost ten years ago, and only a few remain in private hands. Public collections with examples by Jaquet-Droz include the Patek Philippe Museum, the former collection of Guido Reuge, now the Kobe Doll Museum, and the Louvre.