Piece I · A demonstration of craftsmanship
The Rosen Owl
An owl, made in the Atelier between 2008 and 2019 to show what the house can do. It has never been for sale. It is the most convincing thing we have made that we are still permitted to show.
Active
Ornithological replica
20 June 2024
20 June 2026
Frequently mistaken for a living bird. Condition: Must be identified as a replica whenever it is displayed in public. Human contact: Eldon Rosen, President. The filing on registry.frothly.org
Why an owl
In March 2008 the President asked the Atelier for a piece that would show, without explanation, what the house could do. He specified only that it should be a living thing that people know well enough to judge, and that it should be still for most of the time. A thing that moves constantly can hide its faults in motion. A thing that is still must simply be right.
The Atelier proposed an owl. Owls are watched closely by people who love them. They are motionless for long periods. And when they do move they move in ways a machine finds very hard: the head turns further than seems possible, the eyes do not move at all, and the whole bird settles its feathers the way a person settles a coat.
Eleven years
The Owl took eleven years and seven months, from its commission on 3 March 2008 to the morning of 2 October 2019, when the Master of the Atelier wound it for the first time and it turned its head toward the sound of the key. Thirty-one people worked on it. Every one of them is named on its certificate of provenance, in the order in which they worked.
The first year was spent watching birds, at a raptor sanctuary in the Skagit Valley and on long evenings in the woods above the Snoqualmie, and producing 1,140 study drawings. The second and third years were spent on the head alone. The last year was spent setting feathers.
The Owl has 4,812 parts, not counting the feathers, of which there are 2,206. Each feather was cut from laminated keratin film, shaped over steam and set by hand at its own angle on a silk ground, so that the bird’s outline breaks up softly against the light the way a living bird’s does. Ottilie Brandvold, the Master of the Atelier, set 640 of them herself. She has declined to say which.
The eyes
The eyes are the work of the house ocularist. The trade has been practiced at the House since its founding, when one of the eleven makers who constituted the Association was a maker of glass eyes for natural history museums, and it is the trade the house is proudest of and speaks of least.
Each eye is blown, enameled and painted from behind in nine layers, so that the iris has depth when light crosses it. Behind each sits a thirteen-bladed diaphragm that narrows the pupil in strong light and opens it at dusk. The eyes themselves do not move in their sockets. Neither do an owl’s. Visitors who notice that the Owl never glances at them, only turns its whole head to look, are noticing the single most accurate thing about it.
- A
- Upper lid. Kid leather over a steel spring, closing in three ways.
- B
- Pupil. Thirteen blades of blued steel, opening at dusk.
- C
- Iris. Enamel painted from behind in nine layers, with crypts and rings taken from life.
- D
- Glass. Blown in the Atelier and ground to 31 millimeters.
- E
- Facial disc. Feathers angled to carry sound to the ears.
Nine layers
The iris is painted on the back of the glass, the deepest layer first, so that the last layer the ocularist paints is the one the visitor sees through all the others. The crypts and rings are taken from drawings of a living bird made at the sanctuary in the first year.
The eye took fourteen months. The ocularist made thirty-four before two were good enough to be a pair.
The head mechanism
Attention
The Owl attends to sound. Three years of its making were spent on the head, and most of what visitors remember happens there.
- A
- Facial disc. 212 feathers set on a pierced brass ring, each angled to carry sound toward the ears.
- B
- Eyelids. Upper and lower, in kid leather over steel. Three kinds of blink.
- C
- Eye glass. Blown and enameled by the house ocularist. The iris is painted from behind in nine layers.
- D
- Iris diaphragm. Thirteen blades. The pupil narrows in strong light and widens at dusk.
- E
- Skull frame. Sycamore, pierced and lined with brass.
- F
- Neck gimbal. Two rings on four pivots. Allows 270 degrees of turn and a tilt of 40.
- G
- Attention cam. A heart cam that returns the head to rest when nothing is heard.
- H
- Mainspring barrel. Sixty teeth. A week’s reserve when fully wound.
The feathers of the facial disc (A) are angled to gather sound, and a pair of brass horns behind the disc carry it to a small mechanism that turns the head toward the source. When the room is quiet, a heart-shaped cam (G) returns the head to rest, slowly, as if the bird had lost interest.
It blinks in three ways: a slow blink of contentment, a quick blink at sudden light, and a sideways sweep of the inner lid that nobody notices until they have seen it once, after which nobody can stop noticing it. It rouses its feathers, preens, settles and sleeps through the day. It wakes at dusk whether or not anybody is watching.
It is wound once a week by key, and the winding takes four minutes. The mainspring (H) gives seven days’ reserve and also turns a small dynamo that powers the attention mechanism, so that the Owl needs nothing from the House but the key and the hand that turns it.
Why it is registered
A mechanical bird does not need a license from the Turing Registry. The Owl is registered because the house asked.
Between 2021 and 2024 the House received a visit from a state wildlife officer, prompted by a guest who believed a wild owl was being kept in a private home; a letter from a university ornithologist asking permission to fit the bird with a leg band; and four offers of food. In each case the visitor had been told at the door, and again in the Salon, that the Owl was made. In each case they had not believed it.
The house concluded that the Owl ought to have a public record that anyone could consult without taking the house’s word for anything. In February 2024 the Association’s General Counsel wrote to the Registry asking that the Owl be entered on the register. The Registry observed that it had not been asked to license a bird before, and on 20 June 2024 licensed the Owl as an ornithological replica, on one condition: that it be identified as a replica whenever it is displayed in public. The license was renewed on 20 June 2026.
How the condition is met
A small enameled plaque reading Replica is fixed to the front of the Owl’s stand (drawing 214, E). The attendant in the Salon says so at the start of every evening. The Owl’s certificate of provenance is shown in a case beside it, open at the page that lists its makers.
Visitors continue to disbelieve the plaque. The house regards this as a compliment and the Registry regards it as a condition, and we see no conflict between the two.
The photograph
In April 2025 a photograph of an owl circulated widely as evidence that a bird long thought lost from the region had returned. Several correspondents asked whether it showed ours. It did not, and the photograph turned out not to be a photograph of anything. Our statement of 14 April 2025 sets out the difference between a made thing and a forgery, and the house has published the Owl’s keeping log for the week in question.
Register of Provenance, vol. XXXVIII, fol. 211
The certificate
The certificate shown beside the Owl in the Salon, transcribed. The original is written in iron gall ink and signed in the order shown.
An owl, demonstration piece
Certificate of provenance No. 118 204 · entered 2 October 2019
- Commissioned
- 3 March 2008, by Eldon Rosen, President
- Completed
- 2 October 2019, at the Atelier, Seattle
- Parts
- 4,812, and 2,206 feathers
- Hallmarks
- House mark; year letter for 2019; the Master’s mark, struck under the left foot
- Declaration
- This is a made thing. It is not alive and was not alive. It is declared as made wherever it is shown.
Hands, in the order in which they worked
- Hollis Marrow, draughtsman
- Ines Achebe-Lund, draughtswoman
- Corin Ashby, model maker
- Teodor Vasko, movement maker
- Ruth Ambrose-Kell, movement maker
- Samuel Oduya, spring maker
- Clement Fairley, pivots and gimbal
- Celeste Varga, attention mechanism
- Bertil Sand, acoustic horns
- Ezra Whitlock, dynamo
- Wen Hadley, diaphragms
- Agathe Moreau, ocularist
- Josiah Pell, enameler
- Marta Sobieski, cabinetmaker
- Lisbeth Crane, leatherworker
- Arno Feldt, horn worker
- Tobiah Wren, engraver
- Noor Haddad, silk grounds
- Rafael Ostrander, feather-cutter
- Grace Tamura-Holt, feather-setter
- Pieter van Loon, feather-setter
- Harriet Quell, feather-setter
- Mireille Okonkwo, feather-setter
- Ottilie Brandvold, feather-setter
- Duncan Iwu, turner
- Yusuf Adeyemi, finisher
- Margery Lisle, finisher
- Konrad Ahl, first assembly
- Imogen Thale, second assembly
- Lowell Pryce, case maker
- Sigrun Hale, regulator
I. ThaleMaker of record
O. BrandvoldMaster of the Atelier
D. AchterbergRegistrar
Signed in the order Article VII requires: the maker of record, the Master, and last the Registrar. The President’s commission is recorded among the facts, not among the signatures. The declaration was added in June 2024, as the Registry’s condition requires.
Particulars
- Object type
- Mechanical owl; demonstration piece
- Made
- The Atelier, the House, Seattle. Commissioned 3 March 2008; completed 2 October 2019
- Makers
- Thirty-one, under Ottilie Brandvold, Master of the Atelier
- Parts
- 4,812, excluding feathers
- Feathers
- 2,206, of laminated keratin film, cut, steamed and set by hand on silk
- Materials and techniques
- Brass, blued steel, sycamore, walnut, kid leather, horn, silk; blown and enameled glass; hand engraving; feather-setting
- Dimensions
- Bird 470 mm high; 707 mm on its stand; stand 232 mm wide
- Weight
- Bird 1.71 kg; 6.4 kg on its stand
- Movement
- Spring-driven, wound weekly by key; seven days’ reserve. A dynamo turned by the mainspring powers the attention mechanism
- Repertoire
- Twenty-six movements: three blinks, a head turn of 270 degrees, a tilt of 40, rousing, preening, settling, sleep and waking
- Certificate of provenance
- No. 118 204. Register of Provenance, vol. XXXVIII, fol. 211
- Turing Registry
- TR-10215, ornithological replica. Active. Licensed 20 June 2024; renewed 20 June 2026
- Location
- The Salon, the House, Seattle. Shown on Thursday evenings
- Availability
- Not for sale. Not lent
Seeing the Owl
The Owl is shown in the Salon of the House on Thursday evenings from six until nine, to keepers and their guests and to anyone who has written ahead. There is no charge. It has left the House once, for a week in May 2025, to be shown at the Zürich Salon, under the same condition and with the same plaque.
Guests are asked not to photograph it with a flash, which makes it close its eyes for some minutes, and not to touch the case. The attendant introduces it at the start of each evening, says that it is a replica, and answers questions. The Owl usually turns its head toward her while she does. Request an appointment