The Vichy family

Antoine Michel Marie Vichy was a clock and watch maker, born in Paris the 8th May 1813. At the middle of the century, he began, with the help of his wife Geneviève Clémenceau, to build mechanical movements.
In 1862, they founded the Vichy company whose aim was to "build and sell clocks, mechanical objects and toys".
Soon after the creation of his company, Antoine Vichy died. His widow remarried and continued to supervised the family company.
In September 1865, Mrs Vichy went bankruptcy and she was forced to turn over the company accounts. This bankruptcy put an end to the Vichy firm directed by Genevieve Vichy.

In 1866, Gustave Vichy, the son of Geneviève and Antoine Vichy, continued the family tradition.
However, he preferred to develop automata instead of mechanical toys which were an important part of the parent company. He proposed musical automata and other surprises.

End century moon
G.Vichy, toward 1890
H. 76 cm, 2 tunes
Private collection
Book: "Âge d'or des automates"

"The palette of Cabrion is very amusing. It is composed of a palette posed on a trestle with two superimposed characters emerging: one with glasses and the slightly bald cranium, (the traditional type of Mr. Pipelet of the vaudevilles) reads his newspaper while pushing his glasses back up from time to time;
the other, which is a superb clown with a delighted look, agitates his wig and, from time to time blinking the eyes with a derisive appearance, slaps the head of his companion with light blows.
Moreover the lower head is provided with a pipe; when it is lit, the tobacco is consumed, but it is the clown who smokes!"

Palette of Cabrion
G.Vichy, toward 1890
H. 70 cm, 2 tunes
Collection privée
Book: "Âge d'or des automates"

"A great number of automata, representing subjects of the same style, were inspired from a picture, a certain topic. In this milieu, a Japanese woman with an expressive appearance, perhaps a little too occidental, dresses with rich decorated clothes, and holds in front of her a tray containing various masks. She holds in one hand a wide parasol and in the other a mask. She turns the head, raises and lowers the eyelids, while the parasol turns between her fingers and she covers her face with the mask from time to time."

The mask salswoman with japanese costume
G.Vichy, toward 1885
H. 90 cm, 2 tunes
Private collection
Book: "Âge d'or des automates"

In 1893, Henry Désiré Vichy, Gustave's son, took the direction of the firm, at the side of his father, who had decided to gradually withdraw from the businesses.

During the years when he directed the factory, Henry Vichy brought some innovations, among which, the addition of a mechanism of Lioret gramophone to give a voice to the automata.

In 1895 he made the advertisement of automata "speaking, singing and truly playing various instruments. Songbirds, subjects of all sizes for museums and commercial display."

Gustave Vichy is undoubtedly the a striking example of the extraordinary success of the automata manufacturers in the 19th century. Humble "clock-maker and mechanist" at his beginnings, he had acquired a very comfortable fortune at the end of his career.

Gustave Vichy died in August 1904, and the following year his widow yielded the factory to the foreman Auguste Triboulet.