Holdings Information

Bibliographic Record Display

• Title:[Transforming head : putto, maid, nun, vicar, sheik].
  
• Published/Created:[Great Britain], [circa 1830]
  
• Physical Description:5 drawings : watercolor ; 190 x 208 mm, folded to 65 x 72 mm
  

• Yale Holdings

  Holdings Record Display

  • Location:BRITISH ART CENTER, Rare Bks & Mss (Non-Circulating)
    Request for use in the YCBA Study Room
    
    
  • Call Number: GV1229. T73 1830b+ Oversize
    
  • Status:No information available 
  • Provenance:Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
    

   
• Local Notes:BAC: British Art Center copy housed with a second original transforming head. Provenance: Paul Anstee.
  
• Summary:Multi-flapped visual device in which a single face may be adorned in one of five guises. The cross-shaped sheet comprises five panels, each of which bears a figure drawn in watercolor; each of the four square-shaped arms may in turn fold over the central square panel. The central panel features the face of a winged (and bodyless) putto. Each of the four flaps, when folded over the center panel, depicts a different character (maid, nun, vicar, sheik) with a cut-out window in place of the eyes (or entire face) so that the face of the original putto shows through, but adorned in different dress and headgear.
  There is also a simple cut pocket crafted into the base of the central panel (depicting the putto). Into this pocket is inserted a small slip of paper inscribed, in pen and black, ink: "The Genuine Court Plaister, London." The reverse of the central panel is reinforced with a sheet of green marbled paper, bordered in gold.
  
• Format:Visual Material
• Subjects:Court-plaster.
  Amusements--Great Britain.
  Great Britain--Social life and customs.
  
• Subjects (Local Yale):Chron.--1830.
  Anstee, Paul--Provenance.
  
• Genre/Form:Watercolors.
  Overlays.
  Moveable books.
  Metamorphic pictures.
  Recreations--Great Britain.