Automata broadside.- Maelzel's Grand Exhibition, No. 29, St. James's Street, Consisting of the following unrivalled Automata, viz. The Automaton Chess Player... The Automaton Rope Dancer... The Conflagration of Moscow..., printed broadside, recto only, within Greek key border, woodcut illustration of the Automaton Chess Player to head, one very small portion of abrasion affecting couple letters, slightly frayed at foot affecting few words of imprint, light foxing, some light creases and central fold, few small and neat repairs to verso, loose, 245 x 170mm., W. Glindon, [c.1819].

⁂ Known as 'the Turk', the Automaton Chess Player was a famous hoax first constructed and unveiled by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770 to impress Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Kempelen took the automaton on a tour of Europe for several years during the 1780s, which included a visit to Versailles and matches against François-André Danican Philidor and then ambassador to France Benjamin Franklin. After Kempelen's death in 1804, German inventor and showman Johann Nepomuk Mälzel purchased the Turk and continued its tour of Europe and North America, including a game against Napoleon Bonapart. The Turk was eventually destroyed in a museum fire in Philadelphia in 1854, its fraudulent nature having been highlighted by Edgar Allan Poe in his 1836 essay 'Maelzel's Chess Player'. Of this rare broadside we can trace only one other copy at auction in 2006.