$3,000
Sold
sold
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Description
24" (61 cm.) Seated upon a high-back wooden chair is a paper mache elderly woman with incised wrinkles, brown glass eyes, leather eyelids, sculpted brows, hinged jaw, row of porcelain teeth, grey hair, wire spectacles, carton torso and legs in seated pose, wire upper arms, paper mache hands, holding her knitting needles in hands. When wound, she moves her arms and hands in a realistic knitting movement, her eyelids open and close while jaw hinges open as though speaking. Condition: original painted finish and costume, albeit costume faded, some paper mache separations at sides of head, mechanism functions well. Comments: French, Roullet et Decamps, circa 1900. The automaton appeared in an early Roullet et Decamps catalog named "Vielle Tricoteuse, No. 265". Value Points: the very characterized facial model enhances the charming homey scene.