Friedrich von Knaus(s) (February 7 or April 7, 1724 - August 14, 1789), was a German watchmaker and inventor who built

clockwork Clockwork refers to the inner workings of either mechanical devices called clocks and watches (where it is also called the movement) or other mechanisms that work similarly, using a series of gears driven by a spring or weight. A clockwork mec ...

mechanisms which could, in a simple way, play

musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who pl ...

s, write short phrases, or conduct other individual, specialized tasks. Von Knauss was born either in

Aldingen Aldingen is a municipality in the district of Tuttlingen in Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Geography Aldingen lies on the eastern edge of the Baar region at the foot of the Swabian Jura, and within sight of the Dreifaltigkeitsberg (Holy Trinit ...

or in

Ludwigsburg Ludwigsburg (; Swabian: ''Ludisburg'') is a city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, about north of Stuttgart city centre, near the river Neckar. It is the largest and primary city of the Ludwigsburg district with about 88,000 inhabitants. It is ...

.Entry about Johann von Knauss at German watchmaker website.
/ref> His father, Ludwig Knaus, was also a watchmaker. Friedrich had a brother, Ludwig Johann, whose year of birth is said to have been 1715 or 1716. From 1739 into the 1750s, von Knauss was busy with the

Darmstadt Darmstadt () is a city in the States of Germany, state of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Frankfurt Rhine Main Area, Rhine-Main-Area (Frankfurt Metropolitan Region). Darmstadt has around 160,000 inhabitants, making it th ...

great duke's court, and in 1749 he became "Hofmechaniker", Imperial and Royial Court

Mechanician A mechanician is an engineer or a scientist working in the field of mechanics, or in a related or sub-field: engineering or computational mechanics, applied mechanics, geomechanics, biomechanics, and mechanics of materials. Names other than mechan ...

. Together with his brother he produced the famous ''Kaiserliche Vorstellungsuhr'' (the Imperial Representation Watch) in 1750, commemorating the tenth anniversary of

Maria Theresia Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position ''suo jure'' (in her own right). ...

's rise to the throne. In 1757, he completed work on a mechanical musician that played the

flageolet The flageolet is a woodwind instrument and a member of the fipple flute family which includes recorders and tin whistles. Its invention was erroneously ascribed to the 16th-century Sieur Juvigny in 1581. There are two basic forms of the instrume ...

, a kind of

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.Metzner, Paul. Crescendo of the Virtuoso: Spectacle, Skill, and Self-Promotion in Paris during the Age of Revolution. Berkeley: University of California Press, c1998 1998. §1.5.1, paragraph 19, as well as footnotes. Available onlin
here
Some of his most famous constructs were four mechanical speaking heads in 1770; however, they were not very successful. A contest for mechanicians and

organ Organ may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a part of an organism Musical instruments * Organ (music), a family of keyboard musical instruments characterized by sustained tone ** Electronic organ, an electronic keyboard instrument ** Hammond ...

manufacturers held in 1779 in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

attests to their lack of success, in that the contest, held by the Academy of Sciences in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, used the production of a speaking head as the theme, and specified that the machine be capable of speaking the five vowels. In 1778, Knauss was requested as a captain to the artillery of

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, where he died.

References

18th-century German inventors German watchmakers (people) 1724 births 1789 deaths People from Tuttlingen {{germany-engineer-stub