Automata: Life & Other Illusions

Lot #1:

Musical Magician Automaton.

Musical Magician Automaton. France: Alexandre Theroude, ca. 1860. Magician in original satin costume with foil and metal trim, in Turkish slippers, with hand-painted gessoed wooden head, glass eyes, goatee, black silk wig, and silk hat with feathers, who stands at a table with felt drapes trimmed in gilt thread with Dresden paper embellishments, the brass top painted with blue scroll designs, grasping two silvered metal cups, another two cups in the corners of the table, legs painted dark orange. On a velvet-covered stage with ebonized base with inlaid brass strips. Two-air pull string cylinder movement and going-barrel automaton movement. The magician turns his head side to side and nods, the eyes and mouth moving also, and performs a series of changes with the cups: first a die transposes positions, then changes for a loaf of bread and three balls, then for an apple and three balls, then two pears, and finally nothing, as music plays. Height 13 ½”. With original hand-blown glass dome (17” inclusive). VIEW VIDEO