$44,000
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Description
21" (53 cm.) A slender-bodied paper-mache Pierrot with painted white complexion and clown decorations, brown glass eyes, open mouth, and brunette wig is posed seated on the tip of a crescent moon, holding a wooden mandolin and wearing original costume comprising silk jacket and shirt, ruffled collar, fitted knit leggings and pointed blue slippers. The moon has a sculpted profile of moon face, with brown glass eye and an open mouth with hinged jaw. The arrangement is set upon a foundation of paper-mache clouds which open at the back for access to the music and mechanical movements. Condition: generally excellent, music and mechanism function well. Comments: Leopold Lambert, circa 1890. The amusing automaton, named "Aubade a la Lune" (Ballad to the Moon) had first been created by Vichy about 1885 when his workshop was under the direction of Leopold Lambert. Lambert later left Vichy, formed his own automaton studio, and created this nearly identical version of "Aubade a la Lune". Vichy sued for counterfeiting, but the Tribunal held that he had not filed his design in a timely manner, and Lambert won the case. The story of the lawsuit is told in The Encyclopedia of French Dolls by Theimer, pp 334-338. Value Points: very rare and delightful automaton with six animations and two tunes "Le Derby Galop" and "La Valse des Chefines (?)". When wound, music plays, Pierrot nods and turns his head while strumming the lute, then sassily sticks out his tongue at the moon; the moon cheerily responds by winking his eye and opening and closing his mouth. The piece combines two of the most popular and evocative symbols of French 19th century popular culture, Pierrot and the moon, into a single scene where they appear to be communicating.