Monkey Musicians of Qatar

Some Limbach (?) porcelain monkey musicians dropped by recently, a little the worse for wear.

At first glance you can see that the fellow with a curved element in his hand is actually missing a large round horn. Attachments of the missing horn appear at his lips, sleeve and cuff.

The Hurdy Gurdy Player appears to be playing a tiny lute-like instrument and is missing a foot.

The Bagpiper's instrument was painted with yellow oil paint and is missing most of the bag-end and pipes.

It's only when you start annotating pictures that the whole ugly truth comes out. In the next 3 pictures, I've indicated where major chips needed addressing. Yellow arrows and circled areas show all of the chips and areas replaced with badly sculpted plaster material, including arms, hands and instruments.

A really good cleanup was needed. Although I originally thought I would use some of the 'repairs' I didn't because repaired arms and hands did not make anatomical sense. 

The fragment of horn still in the fingerless hand of the horn player was a major problem also and after considering it for a long while, I decided to remove the original material there as well.

A metal split ring was the exact diameter of the body of this horn based on the original attachment areas at the break of the arm and the cuff. I looked at various pictures online of similar horn players.

Here is our visitor with his new horn, as well as all chips and missing fingers and toes. There was unfortunately no space for a flaring bell on the horn - but perhaps it is a hunting horn instead of a French horn.

The Hurdy Gurdy Player really was more of a problem. She appeared to have a small lute-like instrument. When I researched similar figures, I saw that hurdy gurdys were a much different shape. 

I took a picture of one while at Louisbourg Fort during the summer.

These instruments are played with both hands in the 'over' position, one on the crank and one over the top board to reach the keys. The position of the figure's left arm which still had original material to the elbow was entirely too long and had to be fudged to be an undershot hand. Perhaps she is just arriving  with her instrument.

Another thought is that she is actually a singer that had a book on her lap and no hurdy gurdy at all! She has the sitting position with one leg slightly raised that the singer figures quite often had. However, she was billed as a hurdy gurdy player, and so she was going to play it.

Research of similar figures have both standing and seated players.

I had puzzled for a long time whether her legs were actually crossed - but dismissed that because the left foot existed in the original and the big monkey toe was positioned correctly. I had no choice but to make the right foot which was missing as a proper right monkey foot. I could not match the size of the left as it appeared out of proportion raised that high. We finally decided in the studio that she would get a more pointed elegant foot since it was so prominent.

Here she is about to start playing her hurdy gurdy.