Marionette
Category
Toys
Date
Unknown
Materials
Composition, wood, hair, plastic and fabric
Measurements
Puppet - 760 mm (height), Control - 400 mm (length)
Order this imageCollection
Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire
NT 663893
Summary
One of the puppets made for and used by the ‘Lilliput Marionette Theatre’. This marionette was identified as a 'mermaid' and is from a play entitled 'The Little Mermaid' and has a wooden control. The mermaid has a white painted composition head with long brown real hair, curled around her shoulders. Her hair has a blue streak at the top and a bouquet of pink material flowers are above her forehead. She has moulded and painted facial features with blue sequins for eyes, with a black pupil. Her left pupil is missing. She has black fabric eyelashes, blue painted eyebrows and eye shadow with yellow sequins. Her lips are painted red. The mermaid is unclothed and has a glass coloured sequin in her navel. Her arms are white painted wood and jointed at the shoulders, elbows and wrist. Her jointed tail is made up of scalloped shaped overlapping layers of material, sequins and plastic. The sequins are a silver colour, the plastic and material are purple, pink/red and some are decorated with a white flower design. The fin at the end of her tail is wood, covered with pink/red plastic. The wooden control attached to the mermaid consists of a cross shape joined to another horizontal piece of wood by metal arms and hooks. A further piece of wood is attached below. Wrapped around this bottom piece is nylon fishing line used to move the marionette. This line is attached to the other parts of the control and attached to the mermaid on her hands and tail. It is possible that this item has suffered from insect damage.
Provenance
Donated to the Museum of Childhood by Mr E Hellawell in 1982.