Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library

Masonic Shrine Royal Order of Jesters Statuette - Jester with Mirror
1994
Maker not marked
China
Synthetic resin, paint, synthetic fiber, metal, paper, ink
overall: 7-1/2"h x 4-3/4"dia.
Gift of Richard V. Travis
2017.053.3

Masonic Shrine Royal Order of Jesters Statuette - Jester with Mirror. Painted, cast synthetic resin (likely) statuette of jester. Figure wears a cerise-colored jester's hat featuring three points tipped with gold balls. His face is white, with black angular eyebrows, pink circles on cheeks, and red painted lips; neck and hands also white. His collar is purple and has eight points tipped with gold balls; his cuffs are similar but with more, smaller gold balls around their edges, and the hem of the jacket across the back features seven gold ball-tipped points. He wears a long-sleeved, open jacket painted cerise, and a lavender shirt with two diagonal white stripes down the front. He wears white footed stockings with purple diamonds around the waist and down the front and back; the toes are tipped each with a single gold ball. He is kneeling and holding a gold-painted mirror with a silver face in his right hand, and a jester's sceptre in his left which has a brown shaft decorated with gold diamonds and a head like his own. Base of statuette is 1/2" thick, circular, and painted lavender with a ring of cerise triangles decorating its sides. Set into base in front of figure is a gold medallion with a raised line around its rim and a central image of the Royal Order of Jesters Billiken riding the earth and holding the reins of a satellite; above this image, the raised text, "PHOENIX COURT 17", and below it, "087 [stamped] of 750 / GENE BEST DIR. 1994". Bottom of base is lined with a circle of green velvet (likely synthetic) that has an oval-shaped gold sticker in the center reading, "MADE IN / CHINA" in black letters inside a black oval.