A Few Remarks Concerning Makers of Singing Bird Boxes of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

Chapter 4: Charles Bruguier

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About This Book

The text traces the mid-eighteenth-century invention and development of mechanical singing-bird boxes, explaining their distinctive automata—wings moving, beak opening, head turning—and giving criteria for identifying antiques. It profiles principal makers such as Pierre Jaquet-Droz and his son, the Bruguier family, and the Rochat family, summarizes workshop practices and familial lineages, and surveys surviving examples in royal courts, museums, and private collections. Decorative materials, technical innovations, geographic distribution including Chinese imperial ownership, and the scarcity of records for lesser artisans are described, along with notable specimens and typical ornamentation.

Charles Bruguier

Charles Bruguier, is better known under the name of Bruguier le Père (Bruguier the Father), was born in about 1750 and died in 1830. He had two sons: 1º Jacques Bruguier whose date of birth and death are unknown, and 2º Charles Bruguier known as Charles Abraham Bruguier or “Bruguier-the-Son” born in 1788 and dead in 1862, leaving his brother and his son who died in 1886, thus ending this family.

The three Bruguiers made very elaborate and fine bird boxes which they marked with their full name, and a number indicating date of same.

Silver gilt and enamel Bird Box signed “Charles Bruguier, Rue des Pâquis 5, Genève”

(Charles Bruguier-the-Son’s own handwriting)

Collection Tiffany & C^o., New York