Doe and Hope

Description

The wooden male youth form having articulated upper arms with elephant grey resin fore arms and hands and flesh coloured painted plaster legs with the original black leather shoes, the fabric torso stamped Siegel Paris, with no. 12263 and 54680 both stamped to the collar survives from early twentieth century France.

The mannequin is pretty much complete with only one finger end digit missing. The whole shows several knocks and losses which is part of its huge appeal. The shoes on this example are more scarce and are simply superb as are the resin grey coloured hands which are rather unusual.

V.N. Siegel of Siegel & Stockman, Paris, established in 1867, experimented with articulated legs, arms and wooden hands with bendable digits in an effort to more closely mimic human activities and later in 1925 startled the display industry with modern abstract mannequins closely following the Art Deco style. The company are still very much in operation today.

Evocative, nightmarish, dreamy, decorative.