The brothers Quay second full-length film incorporates all the strangeness of their peculiar and bizarre automaton with a fine supporting cast and a near surreal plot. Lesser esoteric artistic projects have involved their creativity in the world of television advertising in which their distinctive animation is instantly recognizable. The curious artifacts in museums such as Rudolph II's ' Wunde rkammer', along with medical collections and psychiatric art-work as well as obsolete mechanical contraptions also feature as inspiration at the court of the Quays. Archimboldo was a favoured Court painter of Rudolph II (1552-1612) the Holy Roman Emperor who was fascinated with alchemy and whose Imperial court attracted talents such as the English occultist John Dee. It also features a re-construction of a fantasy character by the illusionist painter, Archimboldo (1530-93) entitled 'The Librarian'. In their short animated film 'The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer' (1984) homage is made to the Czech pioneer of stop-start film animation. The sources of the brothers Quay's influences and references are diverse and esoteric, including much from East European culture, in particular originating from the art, film-makers, graphic designers and writers of Prague, such as the film-maker Walerian Borowczyk (1923-2006), the authors Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) and animator Jan Svankmajer (b.1934). Since graduating from the Royal College of Art in 1969 they have been based mainly in London. 1947 ) are best known for their short-length, highly original animation films. The Pennsylvanian-born twins, Timothy and Stephen Quay (b.