TOY DOLLS

TOY DOLLS

TOY DOLLS

The 18th century was the age of the fashion doll, dolls which were dressed in the latest fashions and sent from Court to Court as a method of announcing current trends. The first known account of fashion dolls appears in the 15th century when Robert de Varennes, Court Embroiderer to Charles VI of France, made a doll's wardrobe for the Queen, Isabeau de Bariere, who then sent them to Queen Isabella of Englan

The rich and extravagant

court life of the 18th century brought the fashion doll to its height of popularity. Fashion shows were conducted with dolls rather than live models, though the dolls often reached life- size. Among upper class women it was the custom to keep two dolls dressed according to the fashion of the day and known as 'big Pandora' and 'small Pandora'. The former was dressed in formal attire, the latter in elegant neglige. Probably the best-known maker of fashion dolls in the second half of the century was Rose Bertin who was at first doll- maker to Marie Antoinette and later, after the Revolution, moved her business to London. There was a decline in the use of the fashion doll in the first half of the 19th century as the influence of the Court on public fashion declined and as fashion magazines superseded the doll.

The wooden dolls of the mid-18th century had their heads particularly well made, although with most dolls it is the head that receives the greatest attention, while the rest of the body can be positively crude and may be of rough wood or merely a bundle of stuffed calico with straw to stiffen the limbs. Care is normally only taken on the parts which show after the doll has been dressed. If the doll wears a cap, then only wisps of hair poke out, if a low neck is the fashion then this is finished smooth to match the face; two raggish shoes on wooden sticks may protrude beneath a silken gown, and on jointed dolls it was not until their dresses were shTOY DOLLSort that TOY DOLLSthe joints were put above the knees and not below.

TOY DOLLS

From about 1790 the flat, paper dolls began to make an impact on the market. These dolls, made of paper or cardboard, were sold in cut-out sheets, each doll representing a different class and profession of person. The sheets also carried a cut-out wardrobe. In the 19th century some dolls were made in the image of popular personalities of the day. Since these dolls were also used by adults they may have been the precursor of the fashion doll. Papier-mache dolls were first manufactured in the early 19th century in Sonneburg and Meiningen. Initially the use of papier-mache made from paper pulp, rags, flour, pumice and kaolin was confined to the finishing of wooden heads. A well-known papier-mache doll was the Parisienne, a Sonneburg-made doll but dressed in France and exported from there around the world. A Sonneburg manufacturer, Edmund Lindner, was the first to make papier-mache dolls that were similar to the life-like Chinese and Japanese examples first exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. His first such doll was a baby doll made in 1855, which was given a realistic skin colour by dipping the head first in wax and then in wheat powder. She was given convincing blue eyes and a suggestion of baby hair, as well as moveable limbs.

TOY DOLLS

England was noted for wooden dolls and later excelled in making dolls of wax. Madame Montanari made her name at the Pierotti Charles Marsh, Meech and Lucy Peck all worked in London and Meech claimed to be the maker of dolls for the English Royal family. Unlike their wooden sisters these dolls had well-modelled lower arms and lower legs of poured wax. Their calico bodies fitted tightly into the hollow limbs, the glass eyes were inset and strands of real hair inserted carefully into the warm wax. The Italians also excelled in making wax figures and babies for their cribs. Rag dolls, often home made, have always been popular and two famous examples are the early Roman doll in the British Museum , and 'Bangwell Putt' of the United States who now sits comfortably in Deerfield, Massachusetts.

China-headed dolls came from the Continent of Europe. The majority had white glazed heads, tinted pink cheeks, little scarlet mouths, eyes usually blue, and highly glazed black hair. This was sometimes orna­mented with pretty wreaths of coloured flowers and leaves. Tiny hands and tiny feet wearing shoes were also made of porcelain, but with soft bodies the dolls could lie down or sit up. As the dolls were sold by length, often they were taller than one would expect from the head size.

TOY DOLLS

To obtain a more natural appearance china-heads would be left in the unglazed state known as biscuit, and in the doll world as bisque. The bisque heads being hollow were soon fitted with weights to enable the eyes to close when the doll was laid down, the lids being painted directly on to the glass eye-ball. When hollow bodies arrived, these also were fitted with gadgets so that the doll could walk, talk or cry and even perform other movements.

Souvenir dolls of the 19th century are popular with collectors as are portrait dolls. The latter were probably derived from the wax figures made by Madame Tussaud. Queen Victoria was a popular subject.

Well known French manufacturers of the past are Jumeau, Bru, the S.F.B.J, and Jules Nicolas Steiner. Famous German names include Heubach, Handwerck, Schilling, Rammer & Reinhardt, Kestner, Simon & Halbig and Edmund Ulrich Steiner. There are many more, but the maker who produced the most dolls seems to be Armand Marseille from Kopplesdorf. His mark AM is incised on the back of the bisque heads, a place where the majority of marks are found. After 1890 the name of the country of origin was marked by law.