Tableaux mécaniques et pièces curieuses à musique marked the completion of the first restoration phase of the automaton collection belonging to the city of Neuilly-on-Seine. The exhibition presented the collection's mechanical scenes, which restoration has been completed and had revealed many of their engeneering secrets. For preservation reasons, the mechanical scenes were not presented in function.

Scenographic intentions

To present a collection of mechanical scenes in a place whose architecture is strong and very present by its golds, need a gesture of balance, harmoniously combining the extreme of a Louis XIV style created around 1870 and amusing scenes from the bourgeois 19th.

This balance is an atmosphere which must be summarized in a presentation of works on hardly distinguishable supports, revealed by a lighting system which seems to come from these works, like small windows opened on a dream.

To heat these lightings, it is necessary to decrease the lighting from the crystal chandeliers giving them the intensity of candle lights, to play with the reflections of gold, the brightness of the parquet floors, the mirrors and the patinas of the place.

To set a rich but discrete casket to present pretty fancy jewels.