Hot Seat

Although their vaudeville career was relatively brief, the Five Barrisons Sisters inspired a wide variety of naughty novelties, as can be seen from the pages of this blog. These two bisque belles suggestively straddling a chair appear to be yet another. The babyish bonnets, long pleated girlish dresses, and the exposed black-stockinged legs are all hallmarks of the Barrison's act, often a mixture of innocence and double entendre. Five inches tall, this piece is incised on back of the chair's left back leg with four-digit number ending in "074" and is painted with a freehand "8" in black underneath.

Both Barrisons are sticking out their tongues, a gesture that is both infantile and immodest.

I suspect this figurine, like many portraying the Barrisons, was copied from a picture or postcard.  However, I so far have been unable to find the original photograph. I did find this poster for the Folies Bergère by artist Alfred Choubrac showing two of the sisters sharing a chair in a similar salacious style.

A slightly different seating arrangement showing the same two sisters.  I suspect these figurines may have been inspired by a series of studio portraits of these two sisters engaged in various off-color antics. Also 5 inches tall, this piece is incised on the crawling sibling's left thigh with "3076" and  there is a freehand "47" in red underneath. If the incised number for the first is "3074," then I wonder what these two were doing in figurine "3075?!"

Update to my Maneki Neko Page

A new neko of brown bizen ware.

Another Zaiden Maiden

Previously on this blog, I posted videos featuring various clockwork cuties by Zaiden Toy Works. The post included this March 8, 1922, advertisement by Zaiden featuring seven dolls, which it declared are only part of the company’s “Sixteen new mechanical numbers,” and I wondered how many more of the company's shimmying and shaking sirens are still out there after over 80 years, waiting to be discovered? These dancing dolls were inexpensive souvenirs of the summer boardwalks and fall carnivals, quickly discarded when their mechanisms jammed or their composition began to flake. Few survived, and even fewer in working condition.  However, I have added yet another Zaiden maiden to my collection.  

This 13.5-tall  inch tall composition, wood, and metal mechanical doll wears her original nurse outfit.  She is Zaiden's "Nurse Girl" who, according to the ad reproduces "a human like motion of rocking a baby. The mother of them all." She has a head and torso of good quality composition and a mohair wig. Her face is nicely and brightly painted. The lower arms are wood and the hands metal, but the upper arms are flexible wire. Her upper legs are wood and attached to a U-shaped metal bar that curves under her body from hip to hip and her black lace-up shoes are metal. She is wound by a key jutting out of an opening in her lower back and would rock the celluloid baby (a replacement) cradled in her hands.  The mechanism is balky, but her clothes are fastened on with metal brads and I do not want to risk damaging her outfit to reach the mechanism to try to oil and clean it.  

Update to My Maneki Neko Page.

New information with a discussion of Hirado ware.