Vaucanson, Jacques de | Mechanical automata

Vaucanson, Jacques de

Le mécanisme du fluteur automate … Paris: Jacques Guerin, 1738

4to (241 x 191 mm). Engraved frontispiece of Vaucanson's automata by Vivares after H. Gravelot, woodcut head-piece, initial, and tail-pieces; a fine, pristine copy. Dutch gilt paper over semi-flexible boards with a floral pattern comprising rose-colored marguerites, tulips, lilies, etc., rose morocco spine; minor rubbing. 

First edition. Scarce: no copies have appeared at auction and Worldcat locates four copies only in European libraries. 

In 1737, Vaucanson built The Flute Player, a life-size figure of a shepherd that played the tabor and the pipe and had a repertoire of twelve songs. The following year, in early 1738, he presented his creation to the Académie des Sciences and received the approbation of that august body. At the time, mechanical creatures were something of a fad in Europe. While most could be classified as toys, Vaucanson's creations were recognized as being revolutionary in their mechanical lifelike sophistication.

Later that year, he created another automaton, The Digesting Duck, which is considered his masterpiece. The duck had over 400 moving parts in each wing alone, and could flap its wings, drink water, seemingly digest grain, and seemingly defecate. Although Vaucanson's duck supposedly demonstrated digestion accurately, his duck actually contained a hidden compartment of "digested food," so that what the duck defecated was not the same as what it ate; the duck would eat a mixture of water and seed and excrete a mixture of bread crumbs and green dye that appeared to the onlooker indistinguishable from real excrement. Although such frauds were sometimes controversial, they were common enough because such scientific demonstrations needed to entertain the wealthy and powerful in order to attract their patronage.

REFERENCE:

Exemplars, p. 172