<< First    < Previous    •    Next >    Last >>

April 09, 2009 -- You must be here to see the speaking machine

Anthon had to step out, indeed. You got set up, sister. Here's young Theresa, all grown up. She was, in fact, twenty-nine years old and still unmarried in 1797. Whether or not she was checking her father's work is my own speculation (von Kempelen did, however, invent a tobacco-cutting machine in 1798).

Joseph's character is another one I had to invent out of whole cloth. All I had to go on was his name; I could find no other information about him whatsoever. So now he's a nerdy amateur scientist with a thing for phonetics.

And speaking of nerdy nerdy stuff, here's some trivia for you: This image, which I linked to last week, is the frontispiece to Kempelen's book on speech mechanics. It's reproduced on several websites and in books as being a portrait of Kempelen himself, and each time I've seen it without the inscription, which reads "Ignatius A. Born -- Naturae amico et suo -- Auctor". Roughly translated, this means "Ignatius A. Born -- To nature's friend and his own -- Author."

It's a dedication, not an author portrait; von Kempelen is dedicating the book to his friend Ignác von Born, the metallurgist for whom the mineral Bornite is named. Von Born died the same year that the book was published, so it's probably a memorial. Besides, when you compare von Born's likeness to von Kempelen's self-portrait, the two didn't look all that much alike.

When designing my own view of von Kempelen, I tried to stick pretty close to the self-portrait, but I confess I was also swayed by this handsome, evocative bust by sculptor Béla S. Hegyi. There are a couple other sculptures of von Kempelen, one at the
Farkas Kempelen General School in Heves, and another by sculptor Marton László, fittingly displayed in the Várszínház (Castle Theatre) in Budapest. His image also appears on commemorative medals, postage stamps and coins. I'm pretty pleased with my own depiction of him, though the curve of his nose seems to have gotten a bit out of control on recent pages. I'll probably have to rein that in when I go back and do art redactions.

In other news, there's apparently a play involving Kempelen, Maelzel and the automaton going on right now in New York City, called The Mechanical. Looks pretty interesting, so if you're anywhere near the Theatre for the New City, go check it out and let me know what you think.