#antique doll
So I recently noticed a photo of Jeanette floating around online, mislabeled as a “bisque and wooden doll by DeHors, late 1860s.” Which could really play havoc with people’s research, so I’d like to set the record straight.
This:
is one of my French fashion dolls, nicknamed Jeanette. She has been attributed to Jumeau, not DeHors, and the early 1870s, not the late 1860s. She has a method of neck articulation patented by DeHors in 1867, which may be where the confusion came from, but her face is very typical of Jumeau’s fashion ladies. And to cap it all off, her body is of kid leather, not wood.
(I only wish I had any chance of affording- or someone buying me -a wood-bodied French fashion doll.)
This picture was on a post with clear information, and I’m really upset that someone’s been spreading it under the wrong maker name. And apparently without sourcing, since anyone who actually went to this blog could immediately see that the reposter was wrong about pretty much everything.
If you see anything else like this out there, please let me know.
welcome home Ophelie, the newest of our family!
she’s a Francois Gaultier fashion lady, probably from the 1880s if her princess petticoat is original (the arm holes look like a style from that era to me, and the combination chemise-petticoat first became a thing around 1877). she has a dress; I just feel like it’s massively tacky. it may be made of antique materials, but it’s this odd mustard yellow with pink trim
her body has some serious damage to the hands and the arms; the fingers are splitting along the seams and, in an attempt to tourniquet off the leaking sawdust, someone tied thread tightly around her wrists. so now her hands are all floppy on loose wrists devoid of stuffing. because someone couldn’t bother to just stabilize the splits
she also has a lot of cracks on her head, possibly from being dropped at some point, but they’ve been repaired
I couldn’t resist that sweet face, so here she is! ready for new hair and clothes and a new life
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I’m not saying I bought another doll but
if I had
her name would be Ophélie and she would be a very battered F.G. fashion lady
this doll I totally didn’t buy on eBay in the first auction I’ve ever won
So I realize I haven’t done a proper full-body shot of Lucie in her new chemise and drawers, with her homemade wig, on her stand:
(big hair is back, remember?)
And we have a new sister in need of TLC to welcome to the family, too:
Meet Renata! She’s a Barrois straight-necked head with pretty intense but expert restoration. She came to me in a birthday box from some very generous friends and now sits wistfully awaiting the right body. Lucie’s came to me in under 6 months- can she hope for such luck? We’ll see…
think adults collecting dolls is a recent fad? think again. quite apart from the mid-20th century antique doll shows, with their now-ubiquitous blue ribbons for the grandest attic finds, women have been collecting dolls specifically made for them at least since the 17th century
fashionable Georgian ladies had to have ways to learn the latest fashions from France, the seat of style and taste. but human-sized samples of gowns and accessories were costly to make and difficult to transport. the solution came with a name: Pandora
two Pandoras, actually. for the woman of means, a petite Pandora for everyday clothes and a grand Pandora for formalwear were necessities. with inset glass eyes and real rooted hair (glued to a slit in the head), the wooden dolls weren’t just mannequins, they were art in their own right. gradually the custom of purchasing miniature fashion samples for one’s Pandoras and showing them to the seamstress died out, but Pandoras remained a popular display item for years afterwards
fast forward to the 1920s and you have the boudoir dolls. they were highly stylized, slender dolls with cloth-stuffed bodies and masklike painted faces- and they did not depict children. with thin, arched brows and deep red cupid’s bow lips, these dolls were flappers through and through. they were a fad and a decorative object, but also much more. movie stars were photographed with their boudoir dolls. some women brought them to parties. this trend caused some consternation among the male powers-that-were, who believed caring for dolls cooled women’s desire to care for children. one professor Max Schlapp wrote, “these exaggerated dolls are the temporary whim of abnormal women. I use the word advisedly, because women who are normal have children and have no time to waste on baubles.”
Mr. Schlapp was clearly allergic to fun
so the next time you see someone mocking a collector of ball-jointed dolls or art dolls, remember: “not intended for children” has a long, illustrious history. and grown-ass adults can do what we want
And thus, Lucie’s underwear is complete! She has her original petticoat so now all that’s lacking is outerwear. I’m going to wait on that until her wig is done, and her pate’s set to arrive on Monday so that should be the next step in the process.
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More progress shots! Lucie now has eyes and is stitched onto her body. Now if the wefts for her wig could just get through Customs Hell we’d be in business. As it is, hurry up and wait mode is activated and I’m working on her underwear in the meantime. I actually have patterns for 11-13″ poupees, so I don’t have to just drape and pray for a change.
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The Resurrection Of Lucie Doll
Earlier, I posted the top photo of a size 0 Gaultier fashion doll named Lucie who’d fallen on very hard times. My boss was generous enough to let me have her (head, shoulder plate, and neck articulation mechanism) when I noticed her sitting on a workbench, separated from the body she’d been purchased for. Armed with epoxy, a round file, sandpaper, and admittedly vague knowledge of what I was doing, I set to work.
The first method I tried involved making a mold using Sculpey and self-hardening Alley Goop silicon mold clay. I must have done something wrong, because the silicon never hardened and I had to scrap that method altogether. I instead just worked with the epoxy (Apoxie Sculpt, recommended by a friend/lifelong restoration artist) sans mold- freehand, I guess? As you can see, the result is generally correct but somewhat clumsy, which I’m attempting to remedy as best I can by sanding.
In several 20-minute periods.
Because the hardware store doesn’t stock size small respirator masks and the larger one makes me lightheaded if I wear it too long. #petiteproblems
Once the arduous task of sanding is done, the equally arduous airbrushing begins. Have I mentioned I’ve never used an airbrush before? This is going to be…interesting.
(That being said, I do flatter myself that I’ve done pretty well for a first try. Having an intact French fashion doll as a model helped immensely in the sculpting phase. Otherwise it seems largely a matter of forcing myself to slow down and take as long as necessary to get things right.)
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RM is an anime about allegedly antique dolls fighting each other to the death for their maker’s regard. That’s the very condensed version of the plot and they’re all clearly meant to be modern Asian ball-jointed dolls (and all by the same maker), but in a hypothetical imaginary live-action adaptation with the dolls “played” by real European antiques, here’s how I imagine the characters.
Shinku: Bru bebe with Chevrot body
Suigintou:Jumeau fashion lady
Hinaichigo:Kammer and Reinhardt toddler
Suiseiseki and Souseiseki: Twin German dolls dressed as “brother” and sister
Progress shots of Jeanette’s ball gown. This will eventually be a full masquerade costume, based on Saint-Saen’s 1872 art song “Danse Macabre.”
No pattern. The white satin came from a prom dress I had in high school that had to be hemmed, like every long dress I’ve ever owned.
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Open a pay-what-you-will doll and toy but mostly doll museum.
I handle these gorgeous works of art on a daily basis. I get to see and touch and interact with them, and that is absolutely incredible. I am so lucky to have this job, but it took years of study and a committment to learning care and restoration techniques to get me here. There are probably more people who want to see these dolls than people able to devote that kind of time to getting qualified to work with them. And, frankly, not that many jobs in the doll world.
Also, I handle the dolls for, relatively, a hot second before they go into the private collections of very rich people. There’s no way I could afford a $20,000 all-original Bru bebe in excellent condition. If I didn’t have this job, I’d see that doll in photographs, or maybe not at all. I wouldn’t get to appreciate things like the tiny details of her silk costume or the delicate, impossibly airbrushed-looking blushing on her cheeks.
I’m not saying these dolls aren’t worth every penny. They are, again, works of art, and ones of that caliber have somehow survived over a century looking like they just left the workshop. I’ve never had anyone whose seen pictures of dolls I work with tell me they were overpriced. I’m saying, it’s unfair and unfortunate that only a small percentage of people get to see them in person.
My dream doll museum would work on the model of the Met and the Museum of Natural History: there’s a recommended donation, but visitors can pay as much or as little as they want. School groups would get special rates. There would be events and outreach programs. Professionals could offer conservation classes at all levels, and maybe kids would be allowed to (carefully and with supervision) handle some less rare dolls from the collection once they reached a certain level. There would be a Dolly Orphanage in the gift shop, for beat-up antique dolls to find loving new homes.
I’d love to bring more accessibility and youth involvement into the doll world. If I ever have the resources, I’ll make it happen.
