The dress on this Roullet & Decamps Magician was reduced to silken shreds and we made the decision to replace the material with the exact same weight of silk with an identical pattern. The silk was dyed to the right base colour and then a pallet of silk dyes was used to hand paint the pattern onto the material. All the existing trimmings and lace were retained preserving the automaton for another 100 years if kept out of the light. We were quite happy with the restoration but were delighted to find the doll feature on the cover of this cover article.
