The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Laban Looking for the Images and Making a Covenant with Jacob from The Story of Jacob series

Art Object

David Roentgen's Automaton of Queen Marie Antoinette, The Dulcimer Player (La Joueuse de Tympanon)

Watch this surprising video of an automaton play the dulcimer.

David Roentgen (1743–1807) took his royal patron by surprise when he delivered this beautiful automaton to King Louis XVI for his queen, Marie Antoinette, in 1784. The cabinetry for this piece is very much a neoclassical masterwork, and the mechanism behind it is truly extraordinary: the figure strikes the strings in perfect rhythm with two small metal hammers held in her hands, which move with great precision.

This object, from the Musée des arts et métiers de Paris, is featured in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens (on view October 30, 2012–January 27, 2013).

See the full video: http://www.cerimes.fr/le-catalogue/la-joueuse-de-tympanon.html

Footage courtesy of CERIMES.

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Laban Looking for the Images and Making a Covenant with Jacob from The Story of Jacob series

Woven by CT or TC, Brussels

Date:: 1550–75
Culture:: Flemish, Brussels
Medium:: Wool, silk (18 warps per inch, 6–7 per cm.)
Dimensions:: H. 151 x W. 127 inches (383.5 x 322.6 cm)
Classification:: Textiles
Credit Line:: Bequest of Amy Warren Patterson, 1981
Accession Number:: 1983.73.4

This artwork is not on display

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Marking: (lower left guard) Brussels mark in silk of pink shield flanked by yellow B's Unidentified weaver's mark (inset into upper right guard) see Media
Provenance

Commodore Morton F. Plant (until 1939; sale, Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, October 27– 28, 1939, nos. 290-95); Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Paterson (before 1957) ; Amy Warren Paterson (until 1981; bequeathed to MMA)
See also
Who
CT TC, Brussels (7)
What
Silk (32,922)

Textiles (32,752)

Wool (9,527)

Tapestries (2,187)
Where
Europe (148,586)

Belgium (1,232)

Brussels (289)
When
A.D. 1400-1600 (20,545)
In the Museum
European Sculpture and Decorative Arts (43,257)
Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History
Low Countries, 1400–1600 A.D.
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David Roentgen's Automaton of Queen Marie Antoinette, The Dulcimer Player (La Joueuse de Tympanon)

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Woven by CT or TC, Brussels

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David Roentgen's Automaton of Queen Marie Antoinette, The Dulcimer Player (La Joueuse de Tympanon)

Related Content

Laban Looking for the Images and Making a Covenant with Jacob from The Story of Jacob series

Woven by CT or TC, Brussels

Met Media

Met Kids

Met Store