Details
Image(s)
TitleMusical Automaton with Cylinder Movement, 'Japanese Lady with Parasol'
Creator Gustave Vichy
PlaceParis (France)
Year ca. 1885
Object number1052
Object nameautomaton with playing comb, automaton with cylinder
DescriptionThis lady in Japanese costume seeks shade under her paper parasol and fans herself to cool down. After pulling out the typical Vichy lever (a brass knob shaped like an acorn) at the back of the automaton, the musical movement plays. The lady blinks her eyelids, rolls the parasol over her shoulder, waves her fan, looks left and right, and nods her head. The paper parasol is original with minor damage. The wooden base is covered with orange velvet. The body and legs are paper maché, as are the arms, hands and head. Inside the body are the playing work and the drive mechanism for the movements of the automaton.
Accompanying textsThe figure contains a comb-playing musical movement with two melodies that alternate automatically.
Gustave Vichy's wife and business partner Marie Thérèse Burger was a seamstress and made clothes for the automatons produced by the firm. Although at first glance (compared to more obviously racist caricatures such as Vichy's "Fruit Seller" automaton) this figure might seem a more positive representation of a non-European culture, it still serves colonial ideologies in various ways. The imitation or appropriation of East Asian (especially Chinese and Japanese) art and culture was hugely popular in 18th- and 19th-century Europe. 'Chinoiserie' and 'Japonism' were fashion trends, but were not purely motivated by aesthetic appreciation. The best-known description of orientalism as a concept dates from 1978 by Edward Said. It can be loosely described as seeing the 'East' as an 'Other'; totally different from, and exotic and strange in comparison to, an imaginary 'normal' European self. One of the main motivations behind this was to make the oppression and subjugation of other countries during European colonial expansion seem rational and inevitable. This is in contrast to what it actually was, namely a collection of economically motivated acts of extreme physical and spiritual violence.
Although depictions of East Asian women in French art, for example, were presented as delicate, vulnerable and beautiful - rather than ugly or 'uncivilized' - the feeling still prevails that they were presented as possessions or trophies. The literal possession of "exotic" automatons and art can perhaps be seen as a symbolic reaffirmation of this.
Gustave Vichy's wife and business partner Marie Thérèse Burger was a seamstress and made clothes for the automatons produced by the firm. Although at first glance (compared to more obviously racist caricatures such as Vichy's "Fruit Seller" automaton) this figure might seem a more positive representation of a non-European culture, it still serves colonial ideologies in various ways. The imitation or appropriation of East Asian (especially Chinese and Japanese) art and culture was hugely popular in 18th- and 19th-century Europe. 'Chinoiserie' and 'Japonism' were fashion trends, but were not purely motivated by aesthetic appreciation. The best-known description of orientalism as a concept dates from 1978 by Edward Said. It can be loosely described as seeing the 'East' as an 'Other'; totally different from, and exotic and strange in comparison to, an imaginary 'normal' European self. One of the main motivations behind this was to make the oppression and subjugation of other countries during European colonial expansion seem rational and inevitable. This is in contrast to what it actually was, namely a collection of economically motivated acts of extreme physical and spiritual violence.
Although depictions of East Asian women in French art, for example, were presented as delicate, vulnerable and beautiful - rather than ugly or 'uncivilized' - the feeling still prevails that they were presented as possessions or trophies. The literal possession of "exotic" automatons and art can perhaps be seen as a symbolic reaffirmation of this.
Dimensions
geheel height: 105 cm
geheel width: 70 cm
geheel depth: 72 cm
geheel diameter: 63 cm
geheel width: 70 cm
geheel depth: 72 cm
geheel diameter: 63 cm