Europe history: Street entertainers

marionettes and jig dolls
gallery

examples of the little figures used by pipe and tabor players over the centuries to entertain the general public in town and country.

From the twelfth century there is documentation of some dancing puppets called bavasteles. They are of Italian origin, but quickly spread throughout France, Spain and the rest of European capitals.

The bavasteles were small full-bodied polychrome wooden articulated dolls that were suspended between ropes in a horizontal position. One end of the string was tied to a wooden stake or other fixed object, and the other to  the leg of the puppeteer, who, by moving it, tightened it and caused the puppets to dance or do somersaults to the beat of the music or the melodies. songs of the minstrel himself. The minstrel could play a bagpipe, a hurdy-gurdy, a barrel organ or a pipe and tabor.

1851

	France France, Provence 18th century Italy
	1797 1804 1810
	1812 Russians in Paris		unknown	1814 Cossacks in Paris
	1815 1820 1822
	1823 satire - 'Gentleman Dancing Master' 1826
	not known not known France   newspaper cutting of court case - Star (London) - Saturday 15 November 1828 french 1829 satire 1830 Germany
	1835		1830-46 France
	1835 1840 Mary Evans Picture Library 1840 France, copy plate unknown 1848 France France unknown unknown early Victorian Germany not known Victorian
	1820-60 France mid Victorian, Holland New York
	1824-83
	unknown with double pipes
	late 19th century France France Victorian lantern slide [detail] 1834 England Morning Post - Wednesday 13 August 1834
	late 19th century France 1888 newspaper article ‘Mr Sam Bayliss and his Marionettes’Preston Herald - Saturday 13 October 1888 French oil painting 1890's statuette 1880-1910 Netherlands
	1893 newspaper article ‘Vanished Street Shows’:Dublin Daily Express - Tuesday 17 October 1893
	1993 Scotland	2010 Charlotte Waites North Carolina, USA	21st century New Zealand festival

 

 

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