The Palace Museum in Istanbul (that used to be known as the Musée du
Sérail and now called Topkapi Palace Museum) has some automata and
musical clocks, but especially has (in the kitchen of the palace)
an automated bird cage with music, that was made by Courvoisier, an
extraordinarily rare maker that I wrote about in a series of articles
in the MBSI Journal.
It is described with photographs in Part VI of my article (pages 9-13)
in the July/August 2011 issue (Volume 57 No. 4) of "Mechanical Music."
If you are a member of MBSI you can pull up the issue through the MBSI
archives. If you are not a member, how about joining? It's a good
deal and a good deed!
Put "Topkapi Palace Museum" into Google and you will get a number of
citations which you can explore. The museum is fascinating although
access to it is sometimes problematical. Write ahead and see if you
can get an appointment with one of the curators.
Have fun!
Frank Metzger
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