The work was absolutely perfect, especially the singing and extreme complication and smallness of the mechanism the bird opening its beak and turning its head when singing.
Louis Rochat the second son was in that line even better than his brother; he conceived and executed the most curious and complicated pieces, which have never been imitated since; for instance singing bird watches and the famous Singing bird Pistols, where a bird appeared and sang out of the barrel when pressing the trigger. A very rare specimen of such pistol is in the Bernard Frank collection in Paris, one of the most renowned collections in Paris.—
In 1829 Louis Rochat made a curious and complicated clock, for which he was awarded by a special diploma, and appointed “Companion of the Watchmakers and scientists of the city of Geneva.”—
Silver gilt and enamel Bird Box by Charles Bruguier-the-Son
Collection Tiffany & Co., New York
Lami of Geneva
This artist was born in 1810 and died in 1902.
He made singing bird boxes of the same size and grade of work as the Bruguiers.
They are just as well quoted by connoisseurs as these, but they are very difficult to recognize as he did not mark nor number them.—