Rare "Sonnette de l'Entracte" ("Intermission Bell") Musical Auto

With plaster-composition head, blue-tipped nose, a telegraph motif decorating his forehead, red mohair wig, brown glass eyes, articulated eyelids and lower lip, seated on trapezoidal stool containing going-barrel motor with seven cams and intermittent two-air cylinder movement, dressed in checked silk trousers and striped silk tailcoat with raised velvet pattern, ht. 29 in. (74 cm), With size 13 steel key and acorn-form stop/start. - The clown sleeps whenever he gets the chance. The intermission bell interrupts his slumbers, not once but three times. On the first two occasions, he wakes briefly, opens his eyes and then returns to sleep. The third ring reminds him of his audience and finally obliges him to start playing. He lifts his head, raises the banjo as strums as the music begins. He looks around and nods while swinging his right leg and moving his lower lip as though singing until he becomes tired again. He blinks heavily, his arm falls inert, his head drops and the music stops. - Literature: Christian Bailly, "Automata, the Golden Age", p. 262. - Listed in the Vichy catalog as a "modèle deposé" (a patented model), "Sonnette de l'Entracte" was created during the period of artistic cooperation between Gustave Vichy and his son Henry. It is a complex piece with a long sequence of actions, one of several prestigious automata described in Chapter VI of Léo Claretie's history of the toy industry, "Les Jouets, Histoire - Fabrication", published around 1893. - We know of only four other examples of this automaton: one formerly in the York Museum of Automata; Lot 329 at Sotheby's New Bond St., 15 September 1993; Lot 518 at Auction Team Breker, 5 November 2016; one in a private collection. This example has been sympathetically restored. Restoration included the paint surface, reconstruction of the stool in period wood and costuming to the original pattern in antique fabric. - Good working and playing condition.

布雷克拍品等级是为了方便竞买人判断拍卖品的成色而设置的。布雷克等级用1到6级来标注外观和功能的成色，(从非常好到非常差)。 在目录图册里用括号里的2个数字来表示，前一个数字表示外观成色的级别，后一个数字表示功能成色的级别。如(3/2)表示外观成色是3(满意的)，功能成色2(好)。 成色 定义参照下列标准： 1 - 非常好 (未使用过，没有使用痕迹) 2 - 好 (新，极少的使用痕迹) 3 - 满意的 (普通的使用痕迹) 4 - 及格的 (明显的使用痕迹，某个非主要部件是后配的) 5 - 有缺陷的 (极明显的使用痕迹, 某个主要部件是后配的，功能上有缺陷，需要修理) 6 - 非常差 (严重破损, 缺少重要部件)