With leather-covered papier-mâché head, brown glass eyes with articulated eyelids, articulated mouth with carved bone teeth and tongue, lamb's wool wig, gutta-percha hands with moving fingers holding turned maple flute, going-barrel motor with intermittent three-air cylinder musical movement in the body, standing with one leg crossed over the other on velvet-covered base, in striped silk breeches, cream silk shirt and red satin tailcoat with striped lapels and cuffs, ht. 31 in. (79 cm), good working condition. With steel key stamped "G.V." and brass acorn-form stop/start. – Movements: The intermittent cylinder musical movement, timed to accompany the figure's actions, is a rare feature found on only a handful of automata by Vichy. As the automaton raises the flute to his lips, the music begins, his eyelids flutter and his fingers play lightly over the stops. After a complete tune is played, he lowers his flute and the music pauses. He looks up, moves his mouth as though announcing the next title, raises the flute and the sequence recommences with his second tune. – Background: Scientifically classified in 1843, gutta-percha is a natural thermoplastic material produced from the sap of the Isonandra Gutta tree native to the Malay Peninsula. The sap was heat-treated and formed into gutta-percha bricks for export, which the eventual manufacturer would soften in hot water and mould to a high-definition and then paint, polish or even gild. The material was used in products as diverse as mourning jewelry, golf balls, musical snuff box cases and even underwater telegraph cables. – Gutta-percha was used in the toy industry by Adelaide Huret and Leverd et Cie as a material for doll bodies and by Gustave Vichy for the articulated fingers of his more elaborate automata. The material was malleable enough for detailed modelling of the finger lines and nails and sufficiently lightweight, and yet still strong, for the playful movements of the fingers over the stops. – Literature: Illustrated in Bailly, "Automata, the Golden Age, 1848–1914", p. 238; Michael Canadas, "La Gutta Percha". – An elegant Vichy automaton, companion piece to Vichy's "Ethiopian Harpist", Lot 572 in this auction.