Does anyone recall this little beauty?
I can remember seeing this in my youth and was astounded.
The performer places the automaton on a stand, in front of an easel, which is also part of the stand.
Then the little chap comes to life. Actually starting to paint. Using real paint from a palette which he holds.
No-one knows what to really make of the picture he is painting ... until he has finished, and turns the easel 180 degrees and lo-and-behold a picture!
...a beautiful item I would love to see again

UPDATE!...
Apparently this appeared on the Paul Daniels show, BBC UK Tv. Created by the French man Houdin in the 19th century, and perhaps performed by Pepe!
keep the info coming in!!!!

please PM me if anyone knows or recalls this item! - regards wulfie

I don't think this was a Houdin piece, though he made a lot of automatons. De Cremps I think, was another French magician who made these types of things.
It operates on a very sophisticated cam gear set. A friend of mine has a new (20 years or less) writing doll that actually writes in French, does several other movements that are very life like.

Thank you Richard,
I have even emailed Paul Daniels via his web site...with...as I expected...no reply.
BIG disappointment. A big and respected magician in the UK.
I will pursue this with another post, as I think this deserves to be seen by EVERYONE! Somewhere, this MUST be owned by some individual or museum - Wulfie

The automaton in question was Zoe and it was featured by Maskelyne, though I do not know if it was his invention. I have in my collection a print of Maskelyn with both Zoe and a Baritone playing automaton. Jim Steinmeyer and John Gaughn have presented Zoe a handful of time.

Zoe works differently than the writing automaton Richard Highes has described. (At least, I would suspect.)

wulfiesmith wrote:


Same here,

I have emailed him more than half a dozen times with no reply.

Tim Reed will email you very fast if you wanna buy somthing.

Who is Tim Reed??

Person who is selling the PD props nowadays.

I emailed Paul once and he got back to me right away. We exchanged several emails before the flood hit.

He was super personable.