Background
Von Knauss was born either in Aldingen or in Ludwigsburg. His father, Ludwig Knaus, was also a watchmaker.
Von Knauss was born either in Aldingen or in Ludwigsburg. His father, Ludwig Knaus, was also a watchmaker.
Friedrich had a brother, Ludwig Johann, whose year of birth is said to have been 1715 or 1716. From 1739 into the 1750s, von Knauss was busy with the Darmstadt great duke"s court, and in 1749 he became "Hofmechaniker", Imperial and Royial Court Mechanician. In 1757, he completed work on a mechanical musician that played the flageolet, a kind of recorder.
Some of his most famous constructs were four mechanical speaking heads in 1770.
However, they were not very successful. A contest for mechanicians and organ manufacturers held in 1779 in Russia attests to their lack of success, in that the contest, held by the Academy of Sciences in Saint St. Petersburg, used the production of a speaking head as the theme, and specified that the machine be capable of speaking the five vowels.
In 1778, Knauss was requested as a captain to the artillery of Vienna, where he died.