![]() ![]() ![]() Vaucanson and his duck are referred to in Lawrence Norfolk's 1991 novel Lempriere's Dictionary. The duck is referred to in Peter Carey's novel, The Chemistry of Tears. In Thomas Pynchon's historical novel Mason & Dixon, Vaucanson's duck attains consciousness and pursues an exiled Parisian chef across the United States. The duck is mentioned by the hero of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Artist of the Beautiful", and is referenced and discussed in John Twelve Hawks' novel "Spark". Another replica was commissioned privately from David Secrett, an automaton maker known for his archer figure. Modern influence Ī replica of Vaucanson's mechanical duck, created by Frédéric Vidoni, was part of the collection of the (now defunct) Grenoble Automata Museum. Robert-Houdin described this as "a piece of artifice I would happily have incorporated in a conjuring trick". When the stage magician and automaton builder Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin examined the Duck in 1844, he found that Vaucanson had faked the mechanism, and the Duck's excreta consisted of pre-prepared breadcrumb pellets, dyed green. Vaucanson described the Duck's interior as containing a small "chemical laboratory" capable of breaking down the grain. As well as quacking and muddling water with its bill, it appeared capable of drinking water, and of taking food from its operator's hand, swallowing it with a gulping action and excreting what appeared to be a digested version of it. The Duck was the size of a living duck, and was cased in gold-plated copper. An American artist's (mistaken) drawing of how the Digesting Duck may have worked ![]()
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