The Bowes Museum's Silver Swan heads to London

If you've ever been to The Bowes Museum, chances are you will have seen the iconic Silver Swan automaton.

If you haven't, allow us firstly to tell you a little bit about it....

The Bowes Museum is a magnificent 19th Century French-style chateau in the historic market town of Barnard Castle in the Durham Dales.

It was created more than 120 years ago by John and Josephine Bowes to house significant collections of fine and decorative art.

Fast forward to modern times and this remarkable building now contains thousands of objects including furniture, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles and many other items covering an extensive range of European styles and periods

It also plays host to a world-class exhibition programme, with recent fashion events including the UK's first Yves Saint Laurent exhibition, and the decadent Shoes exhibition this summer.

The much loved Silver Swan is a life-size musical automaton that plays to fascinated onlookers every day at the Museum. And now the popular piece will be making the journey south to be one of the star attractions in the Science Museum’s 2017 blockbuster exhibition, Robots.

It will be the first time this culturally important artefact has left The Bowes Museum since its purchase in 1872 by the Museum founders, John and Joséphine Bowes, who paid 5,000 francs (£200) for it. They had earlier seen it at the Paris Exhibition of 1867, where it was also viewed by American author Mark Twain, who later described it in his novel The Innocents Abroad.

Dating from around 1773, the Swan is the only one of its kind in the world, its performances having enchanted audiences through a span of four different centuries. It was first recorded in 1774 as a crowd puller in the Mechanical Museum of James Cox, a London showman and dealer. Its internal workings – controlled by three separate clockwork mechanisms – are attributed to John-Joseph Merlin, the Belgian horologist and famous inventor of the time who, amongst other things, gave the world the rollerskate.

Visitors to the Science Museum in London will, for a short period, be able to see its captivating performance when Robots opens on 8 February 2017. While the exhibition runs until September, the swan will be on display until 23rd March before returning to The Bowes Museum in time for Easter and the commencement of the Museum’s 125th anniversary celebrations which begin in June 2017.

To find out more about The Bowes Museum, visit the website >