Mechanical Music Parlour

The mechanical musical boxes – automatophones, i. e. barrel organ, idiophones, orchestrions, pianolas and others, were intended to play a musical motif, produce famous melodies both in public and in private, and attract attention with their perfect craftsmanship.

The music might be produced with the specific mechanism only after clockmaking was fully developed, i. e. when the hourglasses and water clocks were replaced by clockworks (during the 18th and 19th century); mechanical music box was common up to the 1930s. The display exposes a collection of mechanical musical boxes. Typical features of the boxes are: emotive ornateness, precision clockwork and artistic carving work with fine mechanics and processing of materials.