Conservation in Action: Marvellous Elephant Automaton

This extraordinary object is an automaton in the form of an elephant. So it's actually a giant musical box. It has the musical element in its base and then when it's wound up it has clockwork which drives the body so it springs to life. All of the different parts move, its trunk swings, its tail goes from side to side, its eyes roll, its ears flap and all of the figures revolve. So it's one of these objects that really springs into life. We know that it was made in London but by a French clockmaker in 1774. And although we don't know its immediate history after that, we do know that it was always regarded as something which was very extraordinary and wonderful because it was part of a travelling museum of automata and waxworks which travelled around Europe in the 19th century. We know that it arrived at Waddesdon by 1889 because it was recorded there when Baron Ferdinand Rothschild who built the manor hosted the Shire of Persia for a state visit and it's referred to in the newspaper accounts of that visit. I think it was very much part of a house party weekend at Waddesdon. We know that it entertained the Shire of Persia but we also know that it was wound for Ferdinand's guests who were coming here to have a wonderful weekend in the country. And we know that it was very much enjoyed by everybody who saw it working. We've always kept the elephant in working order. So every 10 years or thereabouts it has a complete restoration, conservation and clean and an overhaul. And so that's what's been happening. So the entire elephant, if you can imagine it, has been dismantled. So the elephant itself has taken off its base and all of the clockwork inside it was removed for cleaning and for conservation. And then exactly the same thing happened with the base, with the musical elements and with all of the figures and the ornament and the sculpture that decorated. It was done by two specialist conservators, Jonathan Betts who did all of the clockwork and the mechanism and Paul Teer who was responsible for cleaning the metalwork, the jewelled elements and the ornamental pieces that make up the elephant. So it was a conservation project in two phases. Jonathan did his work first, then Paul did his work and then the whole thing had to come back together. And it's an immensely intricate jigsaw as you can imagine. Projects like this are always incredibly valuable because in taking an object apart and putting it back together again and in doing that very careful conservation cleaning, you learn so much about the physical nature of the object. So for example, we learnt that the wyverns, the creatures like dragons which decorate its base, were originally very colourful. They had a kind of a red patination all over them and the leaves and the flowers were very, very brilliantly coloured. So that was really exciting. And then we also discovered some new things about the music because the elephant plays five tunes. We don't actually know what those five tunes are, we're having them identified at the moment. But we learnt a great deal about how the pins were arranged on the barrels and also discovered the fact that when it was first made in the 18th century, it played a different set of tunes to what it plays now because there are still traces of the original pins on the barrels. The elephant can be found in the East Gallery at Waddesdon, so every visitor to the house can come and enjoy his newly splendid appearance after the cleaning project. And keep an eye on the website because we also, on a few occasions through the year, we do wind the elephant for the public so you can actually see him in action.