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THE
JOHN DARCY NOBLE COLLECTION |
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| The
Cheating Cardplayer |
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| One
of the absolute jewels of the John Darcy Noble Collection
must be The
Cheating Cardplayer.
Within this marvelous creation of mellowed giltwood and shimmering period glass, reside four wax dolls seated at a card table...playing a friendly game. An innocent enough scenario at first glance...but look closely and one will see the true nature of the game! A "cheat" is among the foursome and we are witness to her stealth...an elegantly-attired cheat she is, as are her companions for that matter! Dating from the late seventeenth-century, this rarity tells us so much about clothing of that time...the styles, the cut, the headdresses, the materials-silk, velvet, lace, bullion fringe-all add to a greater awareness of fashion from that early period . In an article penned for DOLLS magazine, September, 1993 issue, John Noble relates a bit of the provenance of this creation. The exhibition card that remains inside the glass case is the concrete evidence. The card states that the piece was exhibited in Strasbourg in 1935, and handwritten on the reverse is the name: M. Henri d'Allemagne. Mr. Noble owned other unique items that were once the property of the late nineteenth-century collector and historian of toys. Monsieur d'Allemagne was also the author of numerous articles and books on toys, the most well-known being l'Histoire des Jouets, published in 1904. The rarity of this outstanding piece is, simply put, unsurpassed in the doll collecting realm. |
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 The Cardplayers. |
 A tiny glass snake slithers across the carpet. |
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The
overall dimensions of The Cheating Cardplayer are 18 inches tall by eleven inches wide by eight and one half inches deep. The price is: |
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"I
get excited about 1860...and 1820-I'm jumping for joy...but the 17th
and 18th centuries- I'm humming like a top." J.D.N. |
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The
d'Allemagne Angels
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John
wrote of these magnificent, mid-eighteenth-century, paper Angels
in an article entitled "Collectors Collected" which appeared in DOLLS magazine. Once the property of Henri d'Allemagne, a world-class collector in the late nineteenth-century, this pair is composed of paper, paint, silk, net, lace and gold bullion. They can be viewed along with other items from d'Allemagne's collection in a black and white photo that appears on page nineteen of François and Danielle Theimer's work, "The Encyclopedia of French Dolls, Volume I". The d'Allemagne Angels measure sixteen inches in height. |
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