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L’Harpiste Mauresque

L’Harpiste Mauresque published on 2 Comments on L’Harpiste Mauresque

Extra, extra! Remember the delicate, skeletal harp-playing double amputee I linked to yesterday? Her name is L’Harpiste Mauresque, or the Moorish Harpist, and she was created around 1880 by the French automatonist Gustave Vichy. 

Well, there’s a full version of her at the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ, and she’s wearing golden spangles and seated on an octagonal stand. If you go to the Morris Museum’s main site, then Current Exhibitions, then Musical Machines and Living Dolls, then the picture of L’Harpiste [last one in the first row], you can see a high-quality video of her playing and, yes, moving her eyelids. 

Here’s a still from the February 2005 Journal of Antiques, where you can see her expressive little purple face.

With those big eyes, she looks like a BJD! [Thanks to

 for the links.] I like the haggard-looking one better… I want one.

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