All dolled up
Country Life UK|September 04, 2024
Automata made in 19th-century France provided inspiration for the work of American artist Thomas Kuntz and a vintage dolls' house, furnished with period-appropriate pieces, stars in a charity auction
Huon Mallalieu
All dolled up

IN my journalistic youth, it was standard practice to keep cuttings books as an easily referenced record of one's triumphs and embarrassments. As I was already in the habit of making personal scrapbooks and have retained them, most of my life is covered until, rather reluctantly, I began to rely on computer records instead. It is often easier to find something quickly in the cuttings books, which is why from time to time I use them to compare today's objects and prices with those in my earliest COUNTRY LIFE columns, then headed 'Around the Salerooms'.

Recently, I was reading an article on the Mutualart website (www.mutualart.​com) about an American artist, Thomas Kuntz, who was born in 1965. He makes automata often representing the inhabitants of the 'Uncanny Valley', as he calls the border region between reality and the world of spirits and Guillermo del Toro, director of the film Pan's Labyrinth, is a collector.

Mr Kuntz's inspirations include Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, the 'father of stage magic' (whose name was adopted by Harry Houdini) and the best clockwork musical automaton dolls made by Vichy in Paris during the second half of the 19th century.

The latter rang a distant bell for me and a couple of moments with the cuttings books took me back to October 14, 1991, when, I now realise, I got the wrong end of the stick about one of Vichy's better-known models. Here is a belated erratum.

This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.

Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.

MORE STORIES FROM COUNTRY LIFE UKView all
Save our family farms
Country Life UK

Save our family farms

IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
A very good dog
Country Life UK

A very good dog

THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.

time-read
1 min  |
November 27, 2024
The great astral sneeze
Country Life UK

The great astral sneeze

Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
'What a good boy am I'
Country Life UK

'What a good boy am I'

We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Forever a chorister
Country Life UK

Forever a chorister

The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Best of British
Country Life UK

Best of British

In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Old habits die hard
Country Life UK

Old habits die hard

Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
It takes the biscuit
Country Life UK

It takes the biscuit

Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024
It's always darkest before the dawn
Country Life UK

It's always darkest before the dawn

After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat

time-read
4 mins  |
November 27, 2024
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
Country Life UK

Tarrying in the mulberry shade

On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.

time-read
3 mins  |
November 27, 2024