A souvenir from Muzillac?

[anteros_lmc]

This charming ornamental piece is currently being auctioned my Charles Miller Ltd. It’s described as “a French prisoner-of-war-style bone and wood model guillotine with bound and shackled victim lashed to a table, with detachable head mechanism corresponding with blade, supported on a strawwork base with glass dome cover.” The piece is expected to

Comments

[eglantine_br]

I read somewhere that the French POW's made more art than the English. I do not remember why-- but certainly cannot imagine the conditions I read of in the Biche. etc, leading to art... although some people are driven to do art anywhere.

Did anyone else read or hear this? Do any of you remember why?

[anteros_lmc]

Hmm that's interesting. I haven't heard or read this before but I think you could be right. I'm at work just now but I'll get back to you on this tonight.

[eglantine_br]

Thanks. I may have heard in on 'Antiques Roadshow' or some silly place like that.

I know some POWs from WWII, made sketches or things to document their treatment, and I know that some who were treated better made small things to sell. But I cannot imagine someone in Archie's position waking up and saying "guess I'll make a sculpture."

[anteros_lmc]

I think you're absolutely right. I know French POW pieces and scrimshaw work by serving British seamen come up at auction frequently and are very collectible. (There's a beautiful French made bone ship in Culzean Castle) But I have never seen anything made by a British POW. From what I've read, it sounds like they are all too busy trying to escape. It's impossible to imagine that prisoners at Bitche had the inclination to create art. But having said that, I suspect that conditions on board the British prison hulks were scarecely less grim. And art can certainly be used to transcend captivity and suffering.

I have just acquired two books that may shed some light on this,when ever I get round to reading them. One is an account by Louis Garneray, French marine artist and privateer, of the eight years he spent confined on the Portsmouth prison hulks from 1806 - 1814. And I also have an overview of all the British prisoners held in France from 1803 - 1814, which includes a list of name, rank and fate of all officer-class naval and

[_likimeya]

Why on earth would anybody want to put a guillotine on their shelf?? That's horrible. D:
The child's sailor suit is adorable. Would make a great costume! Then again, sailor costumes are perhaps associated with the wrong things for a child of that hight and age…

[anteros_lmc]

Why on earth would anybody want to put a guillotine on their shelf??
Isn't it macabre?! I can't help wondering about the French POW who made this, talk about gallows humour!

The sailor suit is very cute. I'd be tempted to buy it for daughter but she doesn't like dressing up :(

[_likimeya]

Not even if you told her it's a gay pirate's costume? ;)

[anteros_lmc]

Pirate is the only thing she will condescend to dress up as. She did dress up as a princess once as a favour to a friend, she looked very odd in a princess dress!

[anteros_lmc]

It's hard not to feel sorry for Sir Clowdesley isn't it? Almost three hundred years later and his name is stilla by word for a naval disaster.

I also have a soft spot for him as he is played by Jonathan Coy in the tv adaptation of Longitude and Coy also happens to play Lt Bracegirdle in the Hornblower series.

[stevie_carroll]

I like the guillotine, but then I'm a morbid child that always puts 2p in the museum slot machines so I can watch the puppet hangings. The one at Castle Museum in York got a lot of business from me, and last summer I discovered that Sheffield Manor Lodge's gift shop has one too.

[anteros_lmc]

I'm a morbid child that always puts 2p in the museum slot machines so I can watch the puppet hangings.
Really?! I've never seen one of those! Clearly I have been going to the wrong kind of museums.

I must admit the guillotine does rather appeal to me. If I owned it I think I would keep it in the office, it would be a great stress reliever!

[stevie_carroll]

Clearly a trip to Yorkshire is in your future. Come to think of it, the Sheffield machine may actually be a guillotine, although the one in York was definitely a hanging (and both had more than one puppet performer involved).

[anteros_lmc]

How delightfully gruesome! I don't often visit Sheffield these days but I have meetings in York periodically. Next time I shall try and work in a trip to the museum!