Featured Vintage Marionettes

My parents traveled extensively while alive. My Dad recently passed and now I have a number of vintage marionettes that may or may not be antiques. I have no details about them nor can I find any resources to help me understand what they are, where they are, and who might enjoy them. I do not have the space for them. Rather than post pictures of all of them at once, I'll just start with Yang (supposedly named for the location where my parents bought him, but I don't know if that was a city, a province, etc). He is about 5 feet long and there is amazing detail to him. Partly wood and partly canvas, he's quite the monster to get from one place to another, completely filling the backseat of my Civic. He is showing his age and I'm not sure how to maintain him. If anybody has any ideas about how old he might be, where he might be from, his value, the type of audience that might be interested in him, I'd appreciate it. (And yes, he's hanging from a rolling garment rack since my apt. was not big on the idea of installing hooks in the ceiling that could accommodate this weight). I've one full body shot then one of his front half . His back half is equally ornate but the picture file is too large to attach. I'll try to take another picture and post it below. Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome, Amy. I can't help, but yours is definitely one of the most interesting items a newcomer has made their first post.

 

Here is a puppeteer forum. http://puppetsandstuff.com/#
https://www.puppeteers.org/forum/bulletin-board/

 

Thanks! He's fabulous in person but highly unusual. I cannot begin to imagine what it must have cost to ship him across the world. I should really take a picture of him next to a person just for perspective. I'm reluctant to show too much detail on his back half but the carving was so anatomically correct and with such detail that you can easily see he's a male.

 

Thank you! I have tried to find forums like that but never have much luck finding people who are knowledgeable about vintage marionettes. Hopefully, I'll get lucky.

 

If you have a whole collection of these, you may be better off placing them with an auction house that would include them in a sale devoted to vintage toys, or Asian folk art, something that way. I don't know what resources are available to you.

 

Have you tried Traditional Burmese puppets. This one is 2 feet long, not as large as yours but large.

 

Another large Burmese one

 

Bronwen has a good idea there. I noticed a section of marionettes on liveauctioneers. That may give you some auction houses to try.

 

"Zoiks!"
per @i need help

 

oh please.........don't mind us.....our better sensibilities were dealt with ...looong ago !!!

 

I'm with Kiko, it is Burmese. Post-1940, when Burmese puppet theatre was revived after it had all but died in the 1880s.

A horse is interesting, apart from being anatomically correct. Apparently it can also be used to represent the spirit of a horse, like in this tree shrine:


https://paulsmit.smugmug.com/keyword/marionette;burma;myanmar/

 

where would I find such a site? My concern is that the shipping costs on these would kill me. I'm almost to the point of donating them to any museum that would pay to ship them.

 

I admit there are many obstacles. I can see such things being of interest to interior decorators who work for high end clients. The problem becomes how to get them in front of such people & then how to get them there. Your being willing to donate them I would like to think opens up more possibilities. Short of selling them for reasonable sums to people who would appreciate them, what would you like to see happen to them?

 

They won't, sorry. They will spend money to ship rare Burmese antiques, but not to ship pretty souvenirs.
As Bronwen said, this would be regarded as a good quality decorator's piece.
Is there an auction house near you where you could bring them?