Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer

Collection of articles

No. 11 (2025): Prodigios

«La Perspectiva más vistosa que la naturaleza vio». Un prodigioso tocador mecánico para María Luisa de Parma

Submitted
December 9, 2025
Published
2025-12-18

Abstract

In the eighteenth century, the fascination with automata, clocks, and mechanized furniture fostered the emergence of a new understanding of marvels, closely tied to human ingenuity. An unprecedented project for a dressing table with automata, designed for Queen María Luisa by a controversial Sevillian clockmaker, together with the eventful biography of a cabinet-dressing table produced by the firm Seddon, Sons & Shackleton, serve as the foundation for a reflection on the material agency of personalized and automated objects in shaping the image of the elites.