With plaster-composition head modeled as a young man with handsome features, brown glass eyes with articulated eyelids, original paint and mohair tonsure, supporting a bisque-headed child on his right arm, dressed in original changeable silk habit, on velvet-covered base containing going-barrel motor and single-air cylinder movement, ht. 19 ½ in. (50 cm), with Roullet et Decamps stop/start and size 10 steel key. Good working condition. – The figure turns his head, blinks and raises his left hand in benediction as the child lifts a lily stem. – In a world inspired by the stage and circus, spiritual subjects are rarely seen amongst French automata. Both the subject matter and the sensitive modeling of the saint's face, characteristic of Gaston Decamps' work in the firm, recall the votive figures found in Catholic churches and as well as the finely sculpted Neapolitan crêche figures of the 18th and 19th centuries. – The automaton is modeled on the 13th century Franciscan friar Anthony, born Fernando Martins de Bulhões, commemorated for his simple, contemplative life, his visions and miracles. Anthony of Padua is the patron saint of the recovery of lost objects and lost people. – Saint Anthony's symbols include the lily for the Virgin Mary (on whose feast day he was born), youth for purity, a Franciscan habit for his simplicity and the child for his vision of the infant Jesus at Camposampiero. – A rare and very sculptural automaton, the only example of this model that we have seen to date.