Object Literature
We are offering this figure from our client Allie Barnicoat who says of the figure:
“This figure was owned by my late husband John Barnicoat. He was offered her in 1972 when he was head of Falmouth School of Art.She was originally placed on a large wooden stand which we disposed of at the time. This was in 1972. We were both drawn to her as an art object, a life sized ‘doll’, due to the way she was made and we had a true appreciation of her qualities. We always had her seated on a little wooden French antique chair in corners of our various living rooms: From a stone village house in Cornwall to homes in London and Hertfordshire. We named her Muriel after a French film of the same name 1963 directed by Alain Resnais. This makes me wonder if we had been told at the time that she was French. I don’t remember. We have never attempted to renovate her in anyway. Strange as it may seem she was always a ‘member’ of our family and always referred to as ‘Muriel’. It is a wrench to see her leave us.”
Allie Barnicoat.
Wife of John Barnicoat artist (1924-2013)
In the late 18th century and early 19th century, Paul Huot’s mannequins were the most sought-after among artists from Paris to St. Petersburg. The genre painter August von der Embde paid 1000 francs — an enormous sum — to have one sent to Kassel, Germany, while the British painter William Etty once waited a full year to obtain one and then parted with £48 for one similar to this in 1823, the equivalent of £5,300 now. These “mannequin perfectionné,” as they were known, had an internal skeleton with moveable joints, horsehair stuffing, and an external cotton stockinette covering that mimicked human skin. In one of the photographs we show another figure by Huot which has the same stand that Allie Barnicoat remembers once belonged to this figure which they discarded in 1972.
The articulated human figure made of wax or wood has been a common tool in artistic practice since the 16th century. Its mobile limbs enable the artist to study anatomical proportion, fix a pose at will, and perfect the depiction of drapery and clothing. Over the course of the 19th century, the mannequin gradually emerged from the studio to become the artist’s subject, at first humorously, then in more complicated ways, playing on the unnerving psychological presence of a figure that was realistic, yet unreal–lifelike, yet lifeless. (1)
“The seated mannequin is destined to inhabit rooms, especially in the corners of rooms; open air does not suit holiness. This is where they are at home; where they display the gifts of their ineffable and mysterious poetry”… Giorgio de Chirico; Birth of the Mannequin 1938.
A very rare opportunity to acquire an important figure that has not been on the open market for fifty years.
Reading:
(1) Silent Partners: Artist and Mannequin from function to fetish: Jane Muro 2014