This blackbird automaton is extremely rare; only two others are known. One was sold by Antiquorum, Geneva, October 11, 2003, Lot 569. The other, formerly in the Sandoz collection, is now on display in Le Locle's Musée des Monts. Its lifelike appearance is due to the mechanism's being contained within its body, allowing the bird to stand freely. Thus, the movements of its head, wings and beak, and its song all seem to be spontaneous. This rare mechanical bird is attributed to the Parisian artisan Blaise Bontems 1814-1893. Bontems, the foremost specialist in singing birds, was the founder of a dynasty of singing bird makers, which included his son Charles Jules and his grandson Lucien. The Bontems account books for the year 1879 mention two "bronze birds", feathered to resemble a tanager - ?tangara rouge?, which were sold to clients in Paris and Moscow. In the commercial directories of the day, Bontems appeared under two headings : "Clockmaker" and "naturalist", at the time using stuffed birds rather than the feather-covered metals shells that he adopted later.
Literature: Flights of Fancy - Mechanical Birds, Sharon & Christian Bailly, Antiquorum Editions, p.307.