A VERY RARE LATE 19TH CENTURY 'WHISTLER' MUSICAL AUTOMATON FIGURE BY HENRY PHALIBOIS

A VERY RARE LATE 19TH CENTURY 'WHISTLER' MUSICAL AUTOMATON FIGURE BY HENRY PHALIBOIS

Paris, c. 1895, the antique automata figure modelled in papier mache composition as a schoolboy or street urchin, designed with blue eyes and articulated dancing eyelids, with slightly open lips, and with blonde hair, elegantly posed with arched back and stomach pushed forwards, his right hand with index finger oustreteched, articulated from the elbow with the lever passing through the side of his torso, his left hand nonchalantly thrust into his trouser pocket, on velvet-covered base containing going-barrel mechanism driving both the quadruple action automata and the musical 'whistling' mechanism, causing the figure to rock his head from side to side, lower and raise his eyelids and raising and lowering his outstretched left hand as though keeping time to the tune, once activated by a stop/start lever positioned to the edge of the platform behind his feet.

87cm (34,25ins) high, 30cm (11.75ins) diameter at the base.

Related Literature:

See Bailly, Automata, the Golden Age, p165 for an identical model. In 1895, Henry Phalibois advertised "figures playing instruments, speaking, singing, whistling, laughing". Many of his automata did all five things at once, although this Whistler is more restrained. Depicting a Parisian street urchin, he appears on Phalibois' letter head and advertisements at the turn of the century, and was evidently considered by his creator as something of a mascot for the new direction the firm was taking in the creation of large, character driven pieces that depict raffish characters with surpirsing, often vulgar actions.

Auction Comparable:

An almost identical figure was sold at Skinner's, Boston, sale of Clocks, Watches and Scientific Instruments, 28 October 2007 (lot 644) for $25,850.