18th c. Androids

This clip from the Versailles Museum is about an animatronic model believed to be Marie Antoinette playing the dulcimer. It is a masterwork of 18th c engineering that employed several cutting edge technologies of the time. On one hand is an example of mechanical experimentation during the Enlightenment and on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. On the other it shows how Old Regime patronage continued to influence the development of the sciences and technology during the old regime. This model was presented at the court of Versailles, and the subject was meant to appeal to the royal family (it worked, Marie Antoinette purchased the model and gifted it to the Academy of the Sciences).