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

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

Chapter 7: Lami of Geneva
By Georges Pélissier
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ArtHistory - European

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.

Lami of Geneva

This artist was born in 1810 and died in 1902.

He made singing bird boxes of the same size and grade of work as the Bruguiers.

They are just as well quoted by connoisseurs as these, but they are very difficult to recognize as he did not mark nor number them.—

To these different names it is only right that we should add that of the Maillardet Family:

Jean David Maillardet and Auguste Maillardet who have made many small mechanical works, after their collaboration with the Jaquet-Droz.

Unfortunately they very seldom signed their pieces, and the documents respecting their biography are consequently inexistent.

Some of their works have anyhow come under our notice, for instance a snuff box which belongs to a private collection of Neuchâtel and is loaned to the Museum of La Chaux de Fonds. The origin of that piece has been traced as it has been won in a lottery, the curious advertisement concerning which (dated 27 March 1847) is still to be seen in the Museum of La Chaux de Fonds. The number of tickets issued for the lottery was 2700, each of which was valued at “3 Francs of France.” This snuff box, bearing No 5, was valued at the time at 420 “Francs of France” (what should its value be now)?

The second piece is a “Magician” executing all sorts of tricks, which is still exhibited in the Museum of La Chaux de Fonds.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
  1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
  2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.
  3. This book was hand-written.