Fantastic Inventions

[Double Take]

Watch this video. It makes you realize that some of Jim and Artie's (and their adversaries') fantastic inventions weren't so unrealistic or futuristic.

www.youtube.com/embed/MKikHxKeodA?rel=0

[rielle]

WOW! that's it, just WOW.

thanks for the link, DT. That's amazingly gorgeous and fascinating to say the least. 'The good doctor' would have been glad to have that, and I think Artie would have been pushing knobs and buttons and pulleys on this wonderfully crafted 'machine' for hours.

[Apple]

Incredible! I could imagine Jim and Artemus using something like that. I wonder when it was made?

[Double Take]

I wish they had included more information about when the desk was built and where. It is an amazing piece of furniture and equally amazing that it still functions.

[arabella]

There's a little more info on the YouTube page:

One of the finest achievements of European furniture making, this cabinet is the most important product from Abraham (1711--1793) and David Roentgen's (1743--1807) workshop. A writing cabinet crowned with a chiming clock, it features finely designed marquetry panels and elaborate mechanisms that allow for doors and drawers to be opened automatically at the touch of a button. Owned by King Frederick William II, the Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size.

This cabinet is from Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens: www.metmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/listings/2012/roentgen


Now I'm having a visual of Jim and Artie trying to get this thing into the train. ;D
You see desks on Antiques Road Show that have hidden compartments and such, but this one beats all!

[Double Take]

Jun 19, 2013 4:31:44 GMT -8 arabella said:

There's a little more info on the YouTube page:

One of the finest achievements of European furniture making, this cabinet is the most important product from Abraham (1711--1793) and David Roentgen's (1743--1807) workshop. A writing cabinet crowned with a chiming clock, it features finely designed marquetry panels and elaborate mechanisms that allow for doors and drawers to be opened automatically at the touch of a button. Owned by King Frederick William II, the Berlin cabinet is uniquely remarkable for its ornate decoration, mechanical complexity, and sheer size.

This cabinet is from Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, and is on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the exhibition Extravagant Inventions: The Princely Furniture of the Roentgens: www.metmuseum.org/en/exhibitions/listings/2012/roentgen


Now I'm having a visual of Jim and Artie trying to get this thing into the train. ;D
You see desks on Antiques Road Show that have hidden compartments and such, but this one beats all!

Thanks, Arabella. It's the sliding panels and flip open easel that blew me away.

[Apple]

Duh...should have looked harder. LOL!