THE COMIC GIRL. Amusement with a Swinging Pendulum Figure in Many Forms - -

The toy includes a wooden stand and leaded pendulum decorated with a hand-coloured lithograph of girls upper body in a turquoise and lace trimmed jacket with pink bow above a supported on a gilt scroll; 6 interchangeable heads and 5 hats and bonnets; all heightened in gum arabic. [overall height of 18 cm]; contained in the original decorative box [15 x 13 x 4.5 cm], the lid with a hand coloured lithograph depiction of children playing with the game; all within a leafy spandrel decoration; below a scroll with the title in English, German and French.A delightful mechanical toy with interchangeable pieces that rock to and fro giving the illusion of a nodding head. The figures include: a young woman with ringlets, a rather severe old woman, a black woman, a cat, a rabbit and a chicken; together with five different bonnets and hats fro the three women and girls.According to a note in Johann Lothar Faber's Die Bleistift-Fabrik von A. W. Faber zu Stein bei Nürnberg in Bayern (p. 20) the artist/maker of the game was a deaf mute working from Nürnberg. Apparently some unscrupulous businessmen in 1858 inveigled him into allowing his name to be used on a counterfeit pencil that was pass it off as a product of A. W. Faber! Faber is noted for producing some of the finest and inventive games of the mid nineteenth century.