On 9 December 2015, the exhibition Mechanical Curiosities. Musical, Clockwork, Animated Mechanisms from the 17th–19th Centuries in the State Hermitage Collection opened in the Blue Bedchamber of the Winter Palace, the State Hermitage Museum.
The display features devices with a whole variety of purposes – timepieces and musical mechanisms, unique pieces of furniture with secrets and examples of the jeweller’s art. Created in Western Europe and Russia in the 17th–19th centuries, they reflect not only the level of technical progress in their time, but also fashionable pastimes, the ambitions and imagination of those who commissioned and created them.
The exhibition presents works by Western European and Russian practitioners of decorative and applied art, including masterpieces by celebrated mechanics of the past – James Cox (1723–1800), Pierre Jaquet Droz (1721–1790), David Roentgen (1743–1807). Peter Kinzing (1745–1816) and Ivan Petrovich Kulibin (1735–1818) – as well as pieces whose creators are unknown. Many of the items are being displayed publicly for the first time.
The earliest examples of mechanical devices included in the exhibition date from the 17th century. They are German table clocks in the form of animals and a silver toy carriage made by mechanics in Augsburg and Nuremberg.
Craftsmen of the 18th-century age of the Rococo and Enlightenment produced marvels of mechanical art, demonstrating the triumph of reason over the organic world. One of the most famous gems of that time is the Peacock Clock on display in the Pavilion Hall of the Small Hermitage. It was the work of the English 18th-century jeweller and mechanic James Cox. The exhibition features table clocks and pocket watches made by Cox and his compatriot Peter Torckler.
Mechanical Curiosities: Musical, Clockwork, Animated Mechanisms from the 17th – 19th Centuries open from December 10, 2015 until April 3, 2016. Visit the exhibition at the Blue Bedroom (Room 307), the Winter Palace, the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.