Draughtsman-Writer in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2020

The Draughtsman-Writer
ca. 1800

Henri Maillardet


Object Details

Title: The Draughtsman-Writer

Artist: Henri Maillardet (Swiss, working London, Meyriez 1745–1830 Malines)

Date: ca. 1800

Culture: British, London

Medium: Brass, steel, wood, fiber

Dimensions: 58 × 34 5/8 × 22 3/8 in., 400 lb. (147.3 × 87.9 × 56.9 cm, 181.4 kg)

Classification: Horology

Credit Line: Franklin Institute, Philadelphia


Androids capable of writing and drawing, which embodied Enlightenment ideas about links between mechanical and human action, continue to inspire poets, artists, and engineers to this day. This creation became the basis for Brian Selznick’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret (2007), which Martin Scorsese adapted into the award-winning film Hugo (2011). Long a mystery, the android’s maker was revealed during restoration in the twentieth century; when the clockwork motor is set in motion, the figure signs his drawing "the automaton of Maillardet." Video Maillardet hid the mechanics of his lifelike Draughtsman-Writer, a seamless blend of art and science, in a 
cabinet rather than in the figure. This allowed for larger machinery and greater memory than in earlier efforts: an unprecedented three poems and four drawings are translated by the action of the figure, through a technology that foretold the computer.


Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/759682