AN EDWARDIAN PUNCH AND JUDY PUPPET SET

CIRCA 1915

Details

AN EDWARDIAN PUNCH AND JUDY PUPPET SET
CIRCA 1915
With carved and brightly painted wood heads and turned wood limbs, characters including Clown, Dog, Devil, Hangman, Baby, Punch and Judy
The box -- 10¾ in. (27 cm.) high; 16½ in. (42 cm.) wide
Together with a probably associated wood box bearing an ivorine retailer's label for Derry & Toms, High Street Kensington, London (9)

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Lot Essay

The Punch and Judy show has origins in the 16th-Century Italian Commedia Dell'Arte. The figure of Punch derives from the Neapolitan stock character of Pulcinella, which was Anglicised to Punchinello.
The figure who later became Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England on 9 May 1662. The diarist Samuel Pepys observed a marionette show featuring an early version of the Punch character in Covent Garden in London. Pepys described the event in his diary as "an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty."

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