Christie’s sales: porphyry, porcelain and brainpower

16/11/25 - Art Market - Paris - From the very first calculating machine, invented by Blaise Pascal, to the Enigma machine used by Nazi Germany to encrypt and decrypt information, and including a planetary clock made in 1763 by Jacques Thomas Castel, counsellor and secretary to Louis XV, Christie’s upcoming Paris sales display treasures of mechanical ingenuity.

1. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
The Pascaline, or “arithmetical machine,” Rouen, c. 1645–1650
Christie’s sale, Paris, 19 November 2025
Photo: Christie’s Paris

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Pascal, in 1642, devised what is known as the Pascaline (ill. 1) to save time for his father, president of the Cour des aides of Normandy, who had been tasked with restoring order to the province’s tax revenues. In designing this arithmetic device, he had, according to the words of his sister Gilberte Périer, “reduced to a machine a science that resides entirely in the mind”. If the complexity of this invention prevented large-scale production, eight examples are known today: five with a monetary system, two with a decimal system, and a single surveying machine, which will be auctioned by Christie’s on 19 November as part of the sale of the Léon Parcé library. This collection also includes the first edition of the Pensées, as well as works by Descartes, Newton and Montaigne. The sale of the Pascaline, which has obtained the State’s export permit, has stirred prominent scientists to publish a tribune in Le Monde, calling for the object to be classified as a National Treasure so that it may join the French public collections. Let us hope it will be subject to a preemption.

2. Jean-François Oeben (1721-1763)
Table known as “à la Bourgogne,” Louis XV period, c. 1760
Amaranth, satinwood, rosewood, violetwood veneers, boxwood and ebony inlays, chased and gilded bronze – 149 × 70 × 51 cm
Christie’s sale, Paris, 18 November 2025
Photo: Christie’s Paris

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