Most people remember a singing bird from the television programme “Going for a song” with Arthur Negus and always want to hear them sing when visiting the showroom. This is true of adults and children alike, showing that we never really grow up.
Singing birdcages come in various sizes, from small cages 11 inches high with one or two birds in, up to 22 inches high with anything from one to three birds in. There are also examples of cages with up to twenty birds in which move and sing, but unfortunately these are very rare and I haven’t seen one for over 12 years.
The mechanism for these birds are very intricate and are worked by a clockwork movement which works a series of rods which move the birds head from side to side, open and close the beak and flap the tails and wings, whilst working a bellows which gives the bird its song. Because of the delicacy of the movement and the fragility of the bird and cage, we have to involve three different people in the restoration of these marvellous objects and this can take up to a year to complete.
The vast majority of singing bird cages were made for the home where they were played on special occasions to amuse the family, but there were some that were made for shop premises and these were worked by having a penny in the slot mechanism, so that when you visited the shop you were given a penny to hear the bird sing and the shopkeeper made some money from your visit. Because these examples were used every day they had a much harder life and are therefore more difficult to find today.
It was a natural progression to move from singing birds in cages, to the delightful singing bird tabatières. The mechanical singing bird tabatières, were first made as early as the 1780’s as a rich man’s toy and later became an affordable commercial item, made of a rectangular box made of base metal, precious metal or tortoiseshell with an oval decorated lid.
The word tabatière is a French word meaning ‘snuffbox’, but has come to be used for any small decorative box resembling a snuff box in form but not necessarily any longer used to contain snuff. The singing bird box or tabatieres originated in Geneva Switzerland, developed by Pierre Jaquet-Droz towards the end of the 18th century.
Jean Frederic Leschot who worked to miniaturize the singing- bird later joined the business. Singing-birdsong at this time was produced by a miniature pipe organ requiring a separate pipe for each note, Leschot developed a compact movement with a single pipe of variable pitch, and this was all completed in 1784-5.
Jacob Frisard another name in the history of the singing bird, whose expertise was the designing and cutting of the cam sets needed to produce the birdsong for the singing bird boxes, and a full time employee of Leschot until 1800
In the late 18th century London was acknowledged as the centre for craftsmanship unsurpassed in the world, and probably for this reason Jaquet-Droz and Leschot opened a London office run by his son Henri Louis. These beautiful objects were made for many years and are a wonderful addition to any home, whether you wish to own only one example or to start collecting many different examples.