Came across this video today, thought I would share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKikHxKeodA

(Warning: this video may crush ego, Enjoy. )

They certainly did some beautiful and clever work

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions...9-4867948bb05c

I saw that exhibit at the Met about 2 years ago. Aside from the Transformers-like mechanisms, the marquetry work is stunning!

I saw the title of the thread and first thought was "Who was making videos 200 years ago?" But yeah that's is an awesome piece of work. You would have to think it took a sizeable chunk of someones life to design and build that. That would be an interesting story in itself.

The Roentgen family workshop churned out quite a number of these amazing pieces. If you're interested in the story this book is fascinating (but expensive )
http://www.amazon.com/Extravagant-In...tgen+furniture
Sadly, the book has very little information on how the mechanisms were constructed.
At the Met exhibit they had the back removed from one of the pieces, so you could see the pulleys, cables, and counterweights.

Check out this earlier thread I posted
http://www.woodworkingtalk.com/f2/un...en-desk-44902/
The link to the Met's webpage is no longer active, which is a shame because there were videos posted of many other Roentgen pieces. Probably somewhere on youtube.