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I am always excited when I can present to all of
you another rare or unusual figure. This one fills both criteria. It
is a rare figure carved in Brooklyn New Your by Louis Grannat. Most
antique dealers today would only say this is a very rare folk art
ventriloquist figure and that would actually be correct but in
actuality Louis Grannat made figures and sold them to the public
from his shop in Brooklyn. They are extremely hard to come by today
and they do breach the 100 year old mark.
This example is rather unique in that he has the leather mouth
movement, rolling eye winker and a hand shaker. I didn't even know
the hand shaker option was known this far back but it is original to
this figure as the wire runs down the arm and attaches into the wood
carved hand then the arm has the original straw filled muslin which
has never been detached from the body.
Unfortunately the original legs were present ( kind of there as one
was missing the lower portion) but no longer usable. I contacted
Buzz at
www.braylu.com and gave him all the measurements and he
delivered me great new legs for this figure.
He came to me with no clothing but I happened to have the white
tuxedo that you see him dressed in and once I had his suit on the
name Louie the Lush just came out of my mouth. He does look sort of
inebriated to me. So I hope you enjoy seeing this super rare early
American ventriloquist figure.
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