$550
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Description
4 1/2" (11 cm.) x 3". Featuring a master mica card with painted scenic background, and two painted heads placed at different levels on the card in order to accommodate to either seated or full-body overlay costume sheets. With eleven original mica sheets, each with painted detail of costume depicting Indians in various seated or standing poses, but without faces, that are designed to be placed over the master card, thus creating costume changes. And with 19 additional sheets of costumes with painted faces, designed to accommodate to the background of the master card. The sheets are preserved in original wooden box (small piece missing). Condition: generally excellent, some light paint flaking on master card and one costume card. Comments: the mica-overlay metamorphoses appeared first in the mid-1600s, and continued as a luxury presentation into the early 1800s, this set about 1830, with various costume presentations detailing folklore or, some believe, allowing stories of court intrigue to be told in a secret code manner. See also #101, 102, and 274 of this catalog. Value Points: This set, with Indian costumes, is extremely rare, thematically, and well-preserved; another example, with fewer costumes, is shown in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.