Léopold Lambert

Léopold Lambert, was born on October 8, 1854 in Aix-en-Provence (France). His parents were inn keepers.

He worked some time in the Vichy society, where his competence and the quality of his work earned him the post of foreman.

In 1886, Lambert formed his own company and sold musical mechanical toys as well as luxurious articles very close to those proposed by the Vichy firm: " Pierrot Writer ", " Serenade with the Moon "...

Toward 1876, he married Eugenie Maria Bougeois, a young parisian dressmaker. She quickly held a significant place in the society, because it is her who dressed the automata created by her husband.

Pierrot serenade the moon
Toward 1890
Museum of automata, York (England)

The Lambert pieces were of two kinds: those manufactured with few specimens, even single, and others, made in series; these last are, generally, ofsmall girls with porcelain heads from the Jumeau house.

They are in general equipped with three or four movements: they turned the head and greet, raise and lower the arms, and differ from each other mainly by their costumes and their accessories. The sumptuous costumes created by Mrs Lambert gave a personal charm to each part.

Among the pieces mentioned in particular in the Léo Claretie report on the Worldwide exposition in 1900, there was a " Méphisto in a red and spangled shirt which rolls its hellish eyes". It was one of Lambert's masterpieces , a beautiful dressed Méphistophélès with a red cape, which sings a serenade. It probably dated from the first years of the factory's existence. Two musical airs accompany its gestures, one of which is " Hello, stay chaste and pure " from the opera Faust of Gounod. The head and the hands were made out of paperboard in a hurry and the jaw is articulated, the connections carefully hidden by a black beard .

Lambert was rewarded with diplomas of honor in Liege in 1904, and Milan in 1905, then abruptly, his name ceases to appear among the participants in the international demonstrations.

From 1910 the society started a slow but final decline.
During the epoch of electric and advertising automata, Lambert had remained faithful to the mechanical automata. The sales were slowing down and he was having difficulty earning a living at his trade .

In 1932, Lucien, son of Léopold, started to pay a monthly sum with his father. Léopold Lambert moved to live in a small room, in the 5th district of Paris. He was in this room when he died on March 4, 1935.

His automata have survived him and, emerging anew from obscurity, they make us find with an astonishing freshness, the tasty perfume of another time and a very Parisian charm.