Friday, June 12, 2009

Theatre Guignol


This Imagerie d´Épinal cutout of a Theatre Guignol comes from Pellerin. From 1840 until World War I, Pellerin published a wide variety of paper toys, including toy theaters, trains, and jumping jacks (a kind of primitive marionette).

The paper architecture models, and toy theaters came in three different sizes. This small theatre is number 1318. These "Petites Constructions" were generally numbered from 1101 to 1500.

This 1984 reprint comes from the Phoenix Papieren Theatre located in Utrecht, Netherlands. It is printed on heavy card stock and measures 2"W x 4"H.

Because I started building these models before it ever occurred to me to take pictures of them, the image of the uncut sheet above comes from the Toy Theatre Company. The photos below are of my model.