Passed
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Description
33" (84 cm.) A tall and lean paper-mache boy with sans souci character expression is posed upon a velvet-covered cylinder-shaped wooden base,posed nonchalantly with arched back and outstretched hands with extended right index finger. His head is modeled with puckered cheeks and an open mouth shaped as though whistling. He has blue paperweight eyes and articulated eyelids,and is wearing original midnight blue velvet jacket,breeches and beret,leather shoes,and stockings. A leather schoolbook satchel is slung around his neck. Movements and Music. The schoolboy tilts his head from side-to-side and blinks his eyelids alternately in mock ridicule of his surroundings,while lifting and lowering his right forearms at rhythmic internals. He alternately "whistles" two casual tunes including "Daisy Bell",1892,(more often known by its line "A Bicycle Built for Two"). The other tune is one in which the boy hits some flat notes,designed to accentuate his demeanor. Like his father Jean before him,Henry Phalibois appropriated the birdsong mechanisms of Bontems to his own designs. There are three well-functioning animations and two tunes.Henry Phalibois,Paris,circa 1900,the automaton was marketed as "Le Potache",and so favored by Phalibois that it became the symbol of his firm,adorning his ads and letterhead from 1900 onward. Over time,Phalibois created variations on this model that were large or small,that whistled different tunes,and which were home models like this one,or coin-operated versions for public amusement like one in the Murtogh D. Guinness Collection at the Morris Museum.