Diana and Stag Automaton at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts is actually a princely drinking game

Falk Keuten of the Spiel und Kunst mit Mechanik blog wrote to let us know about an automaton in my own backyard. Given that he's in Germany, it's fair to say that he is a very well-informed man!

A new exhibit at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts features an automaton of Diana, goddess of the hunt, riding a stag. The piece is in the museum's new Kunstkammer gallery, which now displays the type of thing that wealthy individuals in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries might have collected.

The piece itself is made from cast and chased silver -- some parts gilded, some painted with lacquer. The automaton was designed as a form drinking game at courtly banquets. It moves about the table and stops arbitrarily. If it stops near you, it's your turn to drink.

Here's the full article in The Boston Globe on the ‘Diana and Stag Automaton’ at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts.

Here's the MFA's page about the new Kunstkammer Gallery.

Many pieces such as this are document in the wonderful book titled Clockwork Universe: German Clocks and Automata, 1550-1650

From the book description:

This book depicts the golden age of German clockmaking. The volume offers the most comprehensive examination of the German Renaissance clock ever undertaken. From the founding of the clockmaker's guilds to the eventual shifting of the craft's supremacy from German-speaking central Europe to Holland and England after the Thirty Year's War. Includes contributions from 14 scholars, over 200 illustrations and technical drawings.

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Beautiful and complex multi-dial automaton skeleton clock

Check out this incredible multi-dial clock created by François-Joseph Hartmann (1793-1830), a clockmaker who worked in Paris. The clock features rarely seen automata, two calendars, the age and phases of the moon, the times of sunrise and sunset, the equation of time, world time and the signs of the zodiac! It is believed to be from 1801.

From the La Pendulerie web site:

When the lever is pushed a polished steel whirligig with mirrored glass background, set above a twin-headed fountain with winged leopard heads mounted with twisted steel rods to imitate running water, is simultaneously activated. The shaped rectangular base features a central palmette frieze flanked by ribbon-tied wreaths; it is raised on six turned feet.

The central sprung panel opens when a lever is pulled, revealing the spring-barrel movement for the animations. Mounted on a substantial oak mahogany-veneered baseboard supported on flattened ball feet, the underside set with a facetted sprung steel shaft and cone terminal, activating the automata work by means of a handle that activates a lever and thence the columns, whirligig and fountain. - See more at: http://www.lapendulerie.com/Hartmann-Coteau-Exceptional-Mutli-dial-automaton-skeleton-clock-DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=6&tabindex=5&objectid=584068&categoryid=14437#sthash.8zrQ1krq.dpuf

Here is where you can read more and see additional photos of this multi-dial automaton skeleton clock.

[ Thanks Felix! ]

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