Aunt Sally

Aunt Sally. (France, around 1900). Cut-out wooden silhouette (48 cm high, 18.5 at the widest point, 1.3 thick), painted. At its base, behind, a system allows it to pivot back and forth on a metal rod, itself fixed to a small wooden beam. Element of a carnival massacre game. Many characters of the same kind, but all different, were lined up on a wooden beam. Players had to knock them down by throwing balls. The polychrome is a little faded, the years have also passed, but we can clearly recognize the figure of the rural policeman with his drum. Testimony of the fairground pleasures of the beginning of the previous century when the good people could pass their mood on the representatives of those who symbolized authority: magistrates, gendarmes, policemen, politicians and other distant oppressors. Wormholes who, like the aforementioned good people, paid a slice when the opportunity arose.