Marotte of Ménigoute, in terracotta formerly painted in carmine,
Popular Art early nineteenth, headdress, anthropomorphic.
Ménigoute, between Poitiers and Niort, Deux-Sèvres (Poitou-Charente / New Aquitaine).
Used to put the caps for ironing (or wigs in the late eighteenth).
Originally a term designating the grotesque scepter of the Fou of the King, and by figurative extension, also designating, and still today, the object of a mad passion.
This fancy is stylized in a very refined way of a median line, realized with the nail by the potter, and of the opening typical with its base being able to represent a mouth, but especially allowing to deposit a ember in order to heat the bat and the cap and, thus, that the milliner or the slender empeuses it more easily.
Good condition, note small flaking paint on the foot, not to be confused with égrenures, a slight original égrenure edge of the edge below. Resembling a thin fel, very fine small fold of earth when cooking, above, old and probably original because covered with old paint.
Similar model at the Niort Museum.

Dimensions: 28 cm x 14 cm.
Weight: 1,300 kg.