$5,000
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Description
26" (66 cm.) Standing upon a tapestry-covered wooden box is a paper mache Chinese man
with leather-lidded brown glass eyes,human hair braid with applied elaborately-embroidered
skull cap,amber-tinted complexion,slightly-parted lips,long moustache and beard with
painting details at the chin,carton torso and legs in posed manner,paper mache hands. In his
right hand he is holding a fan,and in his left hand a wooden bird cage. When wound,he turns
his head from side to side,lowers and raises his eyelids,fans himself and turns his wrist
holding the cage as though demonstrating the bird's performance. Condition: restoration to
face and eyelids,costume appropriate and of antique fabrics albeit not original,mechanism
functions willfully. Comments: Roullet et Decamps,circa 1890. Value Points: rare automaton
with artistic modeling of original head,rarer leather eyelids.