Shop windows Automatons

I - Captain Peary

In 1909, Captain Peary was the first person to reach the North Pole. The far North became all the rage, especially for toys. Gaston Decamps, the grandson of the founder of the robot factory, conceived the idea of proposing to the Paris Bon Marché department store a reconstitution of this triumphant arrival at the North Pole. The success of this first animated shop window was such that in the following years most of the big Paris stores wanted their own robot windows. It became a tradition that continued every December for more than sixty years. This typically French fashion spread to the big provincial towns and to some foreign countries.

II - The Founding of the Decamps Firm

Decamps' was founded in 1865. That year, Jean Roullet, a constructor of tools for Paris toy manufacturers, took out a patent for his first model, "a little clockwork gardener." As it was very modern in conception, and inexpensive, it was soon a great success. It became the mascot of his firm and adorned his first headed notepaper. Helped by his daughter and his son-in-law, Ernest Decamps, Jean Roullet increased his number of models and constructed real robots. His firm grew considerably.

III - Animated Sculpture

At the beginning of the 20th century, his grandchildren, Gaston and Paul, continued the production. For Gaston the physical appearance of the robots became the essential point, "the automaton is an animated sculpture."

IV - Cinema

After the war, the Decamps firm's production specialized in animated scenes, but also turned to the cinema and its numerous trick effects. In 1972, Cosette Decamps and her husband, Georges Bellancourt, carried on this family passion by continuing to turn out new robots. Together with a clockwork mechanism that became more and more complex, aesthetic research led to the creation of animated sculptures made of metal. For many years the Decamps firm carried on its activity at 11 rue Amelot, in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.