The Peacock Clock is a large

automaton An automaton (; : automata or automatons) is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers i ...

featuring three life-sized mechanical birds. It was manufactured by the

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

James Cox in the 2nd half of the 18th century, and through the influence of

Grigory Potemkin Prince Grigory Aleksandrovich Potemkin-Tauricheski (A number of dates as late as 1742 have been found on record; the veracity of any one is unlikely to be proved. This is his "official" birth-date as given on his tombstone.) was a Russian mi ...

, it was acquired by

Catherine the Great Catherine II. (born Princess Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst; 2 May 172917 November 1796), most commonly known as Catherine the Great, was the reigning empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. She came to power after overthrowing her husband, Peter I ...

in 1781. Today, it is a prominent exhibit in the collections of the

Hermitage Museum The State Hermitage Museum ( rus, Государственный Эрмитаж, r=Gosudarstvennyj Ermitaž, p=ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)ɨj ɪrmʲɪˈtaʂ, links=no) is a museum of art and culture in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and holds the large ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

. The clock is also shown daily on the Russian TV channel

Russia-K Russia-K ( "Russia - Culture") is a Russian nationwide not-for-profit television channel that broadcasts shows regarding arts and culture. It belongs to the state-controlled VGTRK group. History The creation of ''Kultura'' channel was authoris ...

References

*Yuna Zek, Antonina Balina, Mikhail Guryev, Yuri Semionov
''The Peacock Clock''
– photos, history and description of the Peacock Clock at hermitagemuseum.org (website of the

, archived version) {{commonscat, Hermitage Peacock clock Peacock Clock 18th-century robots Collection of the Hermitage Museum Automata (mechanical)