Christie’s will sell an example of the first calculating machine in history, developed by Blaise Pascal in 1642, at an upcoming auction in Paris.
A press release from the auction house called the Pascaline “the most important scientific instrument ever offered at auction” and a breakthrough invention. The estimate for the box decorated with ebony sticks is €2 million to €3 million.
The Pascaline was developed by Pascal at the age of 19 to assist his father, Etienne, who was then president of the Cour des Aides de Normandie (Board of Excise). The elder Pascal was responsible for re-organizing the province’s tax revenues through “countless mathematical operations, accounting calculations and other topographical surveys.”
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Blaise Pascal designed three types of calculating machines to simplify this process for his father: one for decimal calculations (additions, subtractions, multiplications and divisions), one for accounting (monetary calculations), and one for the purpose of surveying (calculating distances).
Christie’s noted that only nine original models of the Pascaline exist, and that they are held in European museums like the Clermont-Ferrand. One belongs to the IBM collection, and another to the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris.
The one consigned to Christie’s for its sale in Paris on November 19 is the only model that is privately owned, “the only known model dedicated to survey calculations.” Notably, it is still fully functional despite its age.
Pascaline will be the featured lot of the Bibliothèque Léon Parcé sale in Paris. The live auction’s lots includes 15 volumes of written works by Pascal, including a first copy of Pensées with an estimate of €200,000 to €300,000; as well as works by Descartes, Newton, Montaigne and Anne de France, Duchesse du Bourbonnais et d’Auvergne.
France’s Enseignements à sa fille (Lessons to Her Daughter), by Susanne de Bourbon, has an estimate of €150,000 to €250,000.
Prior to the live auction of Pascaline on November 19, the 17th-century calculating machine will be exhibited at Christie’s Paris from September 10 to September 23, Christie’s New York from October 11 to October 15, Christie’s Hong Kong from October 23 to October 29, and then again at Christie’s Paris from November 13 to November 19.