With round moon-like plaster-composition character head, original paint (minor retouch only on cheeks and above eyelids), laughing brown glass eyes and smiling mouth, his bisque hands holding a stringed sieve as though it were a banjo, with slender articulated papier-mâché legs, going-barrel motor driving two cams and replacement cylinder musical movement of the correct type and date, clown dressed in two-color satin costume, ruff and sequinned waistcoat, ht. 21 in. (53 cm), instrument suitably replaced, arms repaired – covered by costume. With brass acorn-form stop/start and heart-shaped key. – The clown strums his curious instrument while swinging his legs to and fro and titling his head from side to side as though laughing at his own performance. – A Vichy automaton with an unusual theme, in sympathetically restored working condition.