IMAGE DETAILS

Artimo Fine Arts

Magician question and answer automaton 'album amicorum' book
with original leather case and instructions for use
Meussel et Fils à Genève, March 1823
Gold, enamel and tortoiseshell
H 20 x W 15 cm
Unique piece
Provenance: J.-G. & J.-C. Meüsel, Geneva, Jewellers at rue des Orfevres, 184 Geneva, dated 1823; Lydia Huber Strutt (1759-1832), Geneva acquired 1823 (?); Bernard Franck (1848-1924), 21 rue du Château d’Eau, Paris, exact date of acquisition unconfirmed, but likely before 1900; Henry & Sidney Hill, Berry-Hill Galleries, New York and London (formerly Frederick Berry & Sons of 25, Piccadilly), at the time specialists in gold boxes and objects, circa 1938; Maurice Sandoz, (1892-1958), Swiss nationality, resided variously in Burier, Switzerland, Rome, New York, Lisbon, Naples. Acquired the Magician, circa 1938; private collection, Europe
Literature: A. Chapuis, E. Gelis, Le Monde des Automates, vol. II, Paris 1928, pp. 170-172, figs. 438/439; A. Chapuis, À travers les collections d’horlogerie: gens et choses, Neuchâtel, La Baconnière, 1942, ch. IX; Letter signed by Henry D. Hill of Berry-Hill, New York, 23 December 1947 to Alfred Chapuis confirming that they had purchased a part of the Bernard Franck Collection some years earlier. (Alfred Chapuis Archive held at the Musée d’Horlogerie, Chateau-des-Monts, Le Locle. Inv. G48.); A La Vieille Russie, Inc. A Loan Exhibition of Antique Automatons, 3 November-5 December 1950, Private Printing by Spinner Press, New York. p. 58, cat. n° 151; Maurice Sandoz collection, Watches and Automata, Fondation Maurice & Edouard Sandoz, 2012, vol. III, pp. 201-202
Exhibition: A La Vieille Russie, Inc. A Loan Exhibition of Antique Automatons, 3 November-5 December 1950, New York

This 'Magician book' is the only known automaton in book form with a question-and-answer mechanism, preserved in its original case with the original instructions. Signed and dated MEUSSEL & FILS A GENEVE, March 1823.

The book is made of gold, enamel, and tortoiseshell, and contains two gold sliders on its side. The lower slider contains six questions in gold and enamel, from which one is chosen, for example, 'Quel est le plus grand bonheur' ('What is the greatest happiness'), and placed in the upper slider. Closing this slider sets the ingenious mechanism in motion. It unlocks the oval gold panel on the front of the book, revealing a scene in gold and multicolored enamel. A magician stands on a terrace with a balustrade overlooking Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc, moves his head, consults a book with his left arm, taps four times with his magic wand on the balustrade, looks again into his book, and then the balustrade opens to reveal the correct answer: 'CELUI D'ÉTRE AIMÉ' ('To be loved'). He waves his magic wand one last time, and the balustrade closes.

Of all magician automatons, this is considered to have the most complex mechanism. Only six others are known in the form of snuffboxes: two in the Fondation Edouard et Maurice Sandoz (FEMS) in Pully, Switzerland; a third in the L.A. Mayer Institute for Islamic Art (Sir David Salomons Collection) in Jerusalem; a fourth in the Landesmuseum für Musikautomaten in Seewen, Switzerland; a fifth from the collection of King Farouk of Egypt (Sotheby’s New York, 08/06/2016, lot 81); and a sixth from the McCullough collection (Sotheby’s Hong Kong, 13/10/2021).

The book has been described as the most astonishing automaton in the collection of Dr. Maurice Sandoz (1892-1958) and was his personal favorite. He used it as a guest book, where visitors to his spectacular collection of automatons in his villa in Burier, Switzerland, could leave their impressions afterward (Revue de Voyages, June 1958). Notable visitors included Anna von Bismarck, Prince and Princess Frederick of Prussia, Prince and Princess Doria Pamphili, Clémentine of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Charlie Chaplin and his wife, and others.

During his lifetime, Maurice Sandoz only lent the book once, for the 1950 exhibition at La Vieille Russie in New York.