{"id":286,"date":"2023-11-15T18:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-11-15T19:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/?p=286"},"modified":"2023-11-21T19:10:29","modified_gmt":"2023-11-21T19:10:29","slug":"the-iconic-silver-swan-automaton-gets-a-well-deserved-fluff-of-the-feathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/2023\/11\/15\/the-iconic-silver-swan-automaton-gets-a-well-deserved-fluff-of-the-feathers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Iconic \u2018Silver Swan\u2019 Automaton Gets a Well-Deserved Fluff of the Feathers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Swan Study Week\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ECuS6HDa-9Y?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>In the 250 years since its fabrication in the studio of jeweler and entrepreneur James Cox, the &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/thebowesmuseum.org.uk\/the-silver-swan-story\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Silver Swan<\/a>&#8221; automaton has beguiled viewers. The mechanical sculpture continues to live up to its original purpose, designed as a crowd-puller to the artist&#8217;s workshop in 18th-century London, which also served as a small museum. Today, it is an iconic resident of the <a href=\"https:\/\/thebowesmuseum.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Bowes Museum<\/a> at Barnard Castle in County Durham, U.K.<\/p>\n<p>Cox modeled the life-size creature on a female swan, incorporating 2,000 moving parts, including 139 crystal rods and 113 neck rings. A slew of delicate pieces are encased in chased, repouss\u00e9 silver, operated by three clockwork mechanisms that control a music box, a pool of glass with swimming silver fish, and the complex movements of the swan\u2019s head and neck. At the 1867 Paris International Exhibition, its large scale and hefty price tag of 50,000 francs\u2014today, that would be well over $200,000\u2014created a sensation. Five years later, the museum&#8217;s namesake, John Bowes, bought it in Paris for a tenth of that price and brought it home to the U.K.<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ECuS6HDa-9Y\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a video<\/a> produced in 2021, a specialist team of conservators and curators painstakingly dismantled the sculpture to examine the condition of its mechanisms and create a plan for its preservation. This year, the swan is undergoing meticulous repairs and cleaning, and the museum anticipates that the work will be completed by the end of the year.<\/p>\n<p>Cox also designed the well-known &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.atlasobscura.com\/places\/peacock-clock\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Peacock Clock<\/a>&#8221; for Catherine the Great, a treasure of the State Hermitage Museum in Russia. Learn more about the &#8220;Silver Swan&#8221; on The Bowes Museum&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/thebowesmuseum.org.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a>. (via <a href=\"https:\/\/thekidshouldseethis.com\/post\/silver-swan-bowes-museum-automaton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Kid Should See This<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_237366\" style=\"width: 2570px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-237366\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-237366 size-full lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"A still from a short film about the Silver Swan automaton, showing its head in front of a background of paintings in a museum.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1343\" data-src=\"http:\/\/tweez.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/swan-week-1-scaled-1.jpeg\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-237366\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All images \u00a9 The Bowes Museum<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-237389 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" data-src=\"http:\/\/tweez.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/swan-1.gif\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-237365 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1396\" data-src=\"http:\/\/tweez.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/swan-week-2-scaled-1.jpeg\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-237388 lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" data-src=\"http:\/\/tweez.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/swan-2.gif\"><\/p>\n<p>Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/members\">Colossal Member<\/a> today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\/2023\/11\/silver-swan-conservation\/\">The Iconic &#8216;Silver Swan&#8217; Automaton Gets a Well-Deserved Fluff of the Feathers<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.thisiscolossal.com\">Colossal<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the 250 years since its fabrication in the studio of jeweler and entrepreneur James Cox, the &#8220;Silver Swan&#8221; automaton has beguiled viewers. The mechanical sculpture continues to live up to its original purpose, designed as a crowd-puller to the artist&#8217;s workshop in 18th-century London, which also served as a&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/2023\/11\/15\/the-iconic-silver-swan-automaton-gets-a-well-deserved-fluff-of-the-feathers\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tweez.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}