The wooden male youth form having articulated upper arms, one black painted hand, and flesh coloured painted plaster legs with the original black leather shoes, the fabric torso with various pencil annotations, the whole surviving from early twentieth century France.
Unknown.
V.N. Siegel of Siegel & Stockman, Paris, established in 1867, experimented with articulated legs, arms and wooden hands with bendable digits in an effort to more closely mimic human activities and later in 1925 startled the display industry with modern abstract mannequins closely following the Art Deco style. The company are still very much in operation today. Although this example doesn’t appear to be stamped it is nigh on a certainty it is by the company.
…“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.
The mannequin is complete aside from one forearm/hand being absent. The whole shows several knocks and losses which is part of its huge appeal and some old worm to the softwood. The shoes on this example are more scarce and are simply wonderfully evocative.
By appointment only.
