Contemporary Musical Automaton Portrait of John... Lot n° 552

Contemporary Musical Automaton Portrait of John F. Kennedy by Christian Bailly, 2015 With plaster-composition character head, brown glass eyes and molded hair, seated at quarter-veneered writing desk with quill pen and a battery-powered brass lamp, dressed in blue-flecked charcoal wool suit, patterned tie and hand-sewn leather shoes, with single-air going-barrel movement in body playing "Happy Birthday", height 21 ½ in. (55 cm), base 12 in. x 17 ¾ in. (30 x 45 cm). With brass key stamped "CB" and "Olympia" ink-stamp on underside of desk. - References: Christian Bailly, "Automata, the Golden Age", pp. 74-75; Auction Team Breker, 30 May 2015, Lot 619 for another example of this piece. - Bailly portrays the 35th president of the United States engaged in official correspondence: a draft telegram to Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. The President's thoughts, however, appear to be elsewhere for - as the lamp light dims - he pauses and his head drops as though on the verge of falling asleep to memories of Marilyn Monroe and the bars of "Happy Birthday". Waking, he turns up the lamp and continues writing. - The musical accompaniment recalls Marilyn Monroe's unforgettable performance of "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 19 May 1962 - just three weeks before her sudden death. - Whereas the flesh and blood President was a keen typist who wrote on an Underwood machine in his formative years as a congressman, the old-fashioned quill used by his clockwork avatar is a nod to Bailly's inspiration, the late 19th century automaton "Pierrot Ecrivain" by Gustave Vichy. - This contemporary automaton completes Bailly's political trilogy, after Presidents Barack Obama in 2013 and Vladimir Putin in 2014. Musik-Puppenautomat "Portrait von Präsident John F. Kennedy", 2015 Politischer Puppenautomat von Christian Bailly, Paris. Nach dem klassischen Vorbild "Pierrot Ecrivain" von Gustave Vichy, um 1895. Er zeigt den 35. Präsidenten der Vereinigten Staaten an