Passed
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Description
24" (61 cm.) h. x 18"l. An imaginative vignette features a paper-mache crescent moon slice rising from a bank of puffy clouds,the moon having classic moon-face with painted complexion and features,blue glass eyes,and open mouth with movable tongue and painted teeth. Poised on one tip-toe on a point of the moon is a bisque-head ballerina,having brown glass eyes,closed mouth,nicely painted features,blonde mohair wig,and wearing fine lace-over-silk pale rose costume,and having painted ballerina slippers. Movements and Music. The ballerina pirouettes en point on her right leg,occasionally performing en avant with her left leg. Bending side-to-side at the waist,she gracefully holds the corners of her gown to lend a fluid and graceful action. Meanwhile,perhaps in gratitude for her lovely performance,the moon blinks its eyes and saucily sticks out its tongue. Two merry tunes play. Roullet et Decamps,Paris,circa 1890,the automaton appeared in the firm's early catalog as #321 described as "Loie Fuller". American-born Louise Marie Fuller was a theatrical celebrity in America,considered a pioneer of modern dance,but not until she had reached Paris did Fuller she feel she was taken seriously. Remaining in Paris,she became a star of Folies Berg_re,her work considered an embodiment of the Art Nouveau movement,and her Serpentine Dance,the subject of an early 1896 film by the Lumiere Brothers. Her dance performances received special notice at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris,and,had licensing been prevalent at the time,she would have been wealthy merely from the many ways her name was used on products to lure her adoring public. Roullet et Decamps' "Loie Fuller",one of very few automata in which the figure was an actual person,is a very rare and fine example of this adoration.