The presence of mythical fairies has been a part of human lore since the time of the ancient Greeks. Tiny human-like mischievous sprites were said to populate the forests of Great Britain and were even claimed to have been photographed in the early 1900s, which eventually—especially in the case of the Cottingley Fairies—was proved to be a hoax. The existence of an innocent and unspoiled community of fairies lets people dream of an idyllic realm where there is a carefree attitude and an escape from the daily troubles of life. The yuletide season is an ideal time to dream of such a world and the greeting card company Hallmark brings these nimble fairies to life with their trademark ‘Keepsake Ornament Fairy Messenger Series’.
Kristina Gaughran – Freesia Fairy (2021)
Kristina Gaughran – Bluebell Fairy (2014)
First released in 2005, the Fairy Messenger series has been continuously sculpted by Hallmark senior artist Kristina Gaughran (née Kline) who also designs many other characters in their ornament line. Each year’s fairy represents a different flower which is featured in the outfit that is designed for the fairy to wear. Since they are fairies, all of the fairies are winged which gives them the illusion of flight when hung upon a Christmas tree. When designing the fairies there is great care in the details that project the image of their girlhood as they posses the innocence of a naive forest dweller. The fairies will typically sport hairstyles such as pigtails, bobs, and other styles popular for a girl. With their lithe and delicate body sculpture and the spotting of freckles, these barefooted fairies seem to lightly dance around the Christmas tree curious to what surprises lie within.
Kristina Gaughran – Sunflower Fairy (2020)
In 2018 Hallmark released an offshoot series of Fairies titled ‘Friendly Fairies Series’ in which the fairies represented characteristics of specific seasons of the year. There is a Love Fairy for February who helps those seeking out their Valentines, a beach fairy for Summer who lightly tests the water with her delicate toes, and a red-haired St. Patrick’s Day good luck fairy who smiles while sitting amidst a spray of clover. The previous years fairies can easily be purchased from ebay or Amazon at a reasonable price but there are special editions and repainted fairies that command a premium on the secondary market.
A reader came across this unusual figurine for auction. The really remarkable thing about it is that it is overtly erotic and looking at the physique of the girl, she is clearly very young. It would have been interesting to get into the head of the artist to understand the logic for composing this kind of subject for a Vienna Bronze. I own a very small one of a girl with a mandolin and so it must have been quite common to feature nude subjects in this medium.
Xaver Bergmann – Orientale mit Katze (1850s?)
I believe the title (Easterner [Arab] with Cat) was meant to be suggestive implying an erotic subject. Although there is no date indicated in the auction, Vienna Bronzes were made starting in the 1850s.
No one is exactly sure what gave rise to one of Costa Rica’s most enduring icons. All we know is that for decades, few Costa Rican homes were without an image or statuette of the nude toddler girl known as la Nigüenta (or sometimes La Niña de la Espina). Her name comes from the fact that she is in the act of picking out a nigua, a tiny bothersome flea whose larva has a habit of burrowing into the human foot, especially the soft bit of flesh between the big toe and the second toe of the human foot, causing extreme itching, swelling and infection. In fact, one nickname of the insect is bicho de pie, or “foot bug” in English. It’s a bit confounding how a child with such an unlucky affliction came to be a symbol of good luck, but that is indeed the case.
Artist Unknown – La Nigüenta (original print)
Some say the original image was inspired by an ancient Greco-Roman sculpture called Spinario (Boy with Thorn), which has a fascinating history in its own right. Others suggest it can trace its history to pre-Columbian shamanic women. If the latter is true, it underscores the cleverness of the natives, hiding a powerful pagan emblem beneath the noses of the Catholic Spanish colonizers in such an innocent and seemingly innocuous form. Whatever its history, honoring and displaying this sweet little girl in the home somehow eventually became one of Costa Rica’s most honored and important agüizotes. As an article from the Tico Times says:
Offerings were left for her to ask for good fortune or a particular favor. Today, she is seen as primarily an enchantment to bring economic prosperity. It helps to tuck a few bills under her base, or to prime the pump, if you will. A Nigüenta received as a gift is a far more potent charm than one purchased.
For that reason la Nigüenta is often given as a gift to older and more traditional Costa Ricans, who proudly give her a place of prominence on their televisions, altars, desks, mantles or coffee tables. Different colored ribbons might also be tied around her neck, depending on what one wanted her to direct her good fortune towards: red for love, yellow for money, blue for health, and so on.
The sculptures come in a variety of styles and colors, from plain one- or two-color ones to elaborately painted affairs.
Note: The Spanish text of this cartoon says something to the effect of “I’ve been trying to get this thing out for years and no one will stoop to help me.” 🙂
A doll is more than a toy. It can represent various things: an ideal version of oneself, an intimate companion, a butt or whipping boy, a super-hero, a training for future parenting, etc. Generally dolls take the shape of European babies or children, often girls.
How do dolls relate to race in the United States, a country deeply marked first by slavery, then by segregation? In the 1940s, Mamie Phipps and her husband Kenneth Clark, two African-American social psychologists, designed and conducted a series of experiments known colloquially as the “doll tests” to study the psychological effects of segregation on African-American children. They described the protocol in a scientific article: the children (aged 3 to 7) were shown two dolls, identical except for the colour of the skin and the hair, then asked several questions. The questions involved which ones had certain qualities (“nice,” “bad,” “that you like best,” etc.), the race of the dolls, and which one looked like them. Most children, while identifying the race of the dolls and recognising their resemblance to the black one, attributed positive qualities to the white doll. The following video shows this experiment:
This test was recently performed in A Girl Like Me, a 2005 documentary by Kiri Davis about African-American teenage girls.
The relation between dolls and race is at the heart of the exhibition “Black Dolls” showing the Deborah Neff collection of dolls and photographs, which was held from February 23 to May 20 in La maison rouge in Paris.
African-American children often had white dolls, as can be seen in the following two photographs:
Norwick, Conn. – untitled, NEFF 10020 (c.1900–25)
Untitled, back inscription “Helen Dorothy Elmer Jess”, NEFF 10007 (c.1908–1920)
Were there black dolls? What did they look like? First we have the racist stereotype; as writes Robin Bernstein about the “minstrel mask” of racist theatrical performance, “it renders skin jet-black, transforms eyes into oversized pops of white, and stretches lips into a fire-engine red vortex.” A gallery of such caricatures can be seen here.
Then there is the “darkened European doll,” a doll with facial features and clothing corresponding to a European person, but with a dark-coloured skin. Finally there is a long tradition of hand-made black dolls giving a more dignified view of African-Americans. Deborah Neff collected hundreds of them, most of them made between 1840 and 1940. Here are three dolls from her collection:
Cape Cod Mass. – Well dressed dolls with painted faces, NEFF 335/336 (c.1890–1910)
Lady in beaded gown, NEFF 68 (c.1895)
Generally these dolls were made by African-American women, in particular in the South. One would expect that they would be given to their children, but one can find several photographs and paintings of white children with black dolls, as shown here:
Burnham Studio, Norway, Maine – untitled, back inscription “Mary Jones and Dinah”, NEFF 10014 (c.1870–85)
Untitled, side inscription “Jean Frantz”, NEFF 10001 (c.1855–65)
Probably many white children in the South got such dolls from their black nannies. However in the North, anti-slavery activists also made black dolls to be sold during fund-raising events, so parents would intentionally give black dolls to their children as a token of support for black emancipation.
A strange configuration is the “topsy-turvy” or “twinning” doll, which was popular in the 19th century, especially in the South. It has no legs, but two heads, two pairs of arms and two torsos, black on one side and white on the opposite side. See here:
Minimal topsy-turvy doll, NEFF 241 (c.1920–30)
At the shared waist was attached a long reversible skirt. Flipped one way, it hid one side, as shown below:
Topsy-turvy doll (1)
Topsy-turvy doll (2)
In the words of a 1903 advertisement, “Turn you up / Turn you back / First you’re white / Then you’re black.” According to Patricia Williams, these dolls made by enslaved black women expressed the cruel ambiguities of their motherhood: some of their children, also slaves, resulted from their rape by their white master, while they had to serve as nannies for the free children that the same master had with his legitimate white wife.
According to Deborah Neff, other less credible explanations have been given, that black children on plantations were not allowed to play with white dolls, or the opposite, that they were were not allowed to play with black dolls. Another theory is that they descend from German “hex” (witch) dolls, which made their way to Pennsylvania: they had one animal side and an opposite human side, one for casting spells and the other for curing ailments.
At the beginning of the 20th century, black militants encouraged the manufacture of black dolls as a way of teaching African-American children the dignity of their origins. Anyway, the tradition of sewing dolls at home disappeared after World War II, and plastic replaced cotton; so there are few recent dolls in the collection.
I end with five pictures of the exhibition in La maison rouge, Paris:
Black Dolls exhibition, La maison rouge, Paris (1)
Black Dolls exhibition, La maison rouge, Paris (2)
Black Dolls exhibition, La maison rouge, Paris (3)
Black Dolls exhibition, La maison rouge, Paris (4)
In the 5th photograph, we see at the back a photograph by J.C. Patton, from around 1915, of a middle-class black family; the little girl holds a white doll. In front of it several “topsy-turvy” dolls are exhibited.
Black Dolls exhibition, La maison rouge, Paris (5)
Interested readers will find the above material, and much more, in the exhibition book:
Nora Philippe, editor: Black Dolls, la collection Deborah Neff, co-published by Fage and La maison rouge, February 2018, ISBN 978 2 84975 497 9.
Credits: The citations in the text come from the above-mentioned book. The above photographs of children with dolls and the shown dolls are from the Deborah Neff collection, their catalogue number (after the prefix ‘NEFF’) is given in the caption. The two photographs of “topsy-turvy” dolls with flipping clothes come from the Imgrum page of Nora Philippe, curator of the exhibition. The last 5 photographs come from the web page of La maison rouge devoted to the exhibition.
I found this wonderful little nude in a general Google search in some broad category (something like “little girl sculpture”), which I do from time to time. Often I get these little objets d’art in such searches as they are up for auction on some site or other. The artist for this piece was not provided at whatever site I took these from, but the manufacturer was given as Volkstedt Porcelain, a company based in Rudolstadt, Thuringia, Germany and founded in the 1760s by Georg Heinrich Macheleid.
This piece is a simple and elegant portrait of a young girl between ages 10 and 13, with delicate facial details and a graceful pose. No color, no bells and whistles here, but she doesn’t need it. This is simply a well-executed piece that any owner could be proud of.
Artist Unknown (Volkstedt Porcelain) – Mädchenakt (1920) (1)
Artist Unknown (Volkstedt Porcelain) – Mädchenakt (1920) (2)
Artist Unknown (Volkstedt Porcelain) – Mädchenakt (1920) (3)
Artist Unknown (Volkstedt Porcelain) – Mädchenakt (1920) (4)
While I am not a subscriber to the Freudian philosophy in full, I do find it fascinating and worth looking into from time to time. What most interests me is what I would call proto-Freudianism, a sort of loose and unfocused examination of concepts like the symbolic phallus and vagina in art. The phallus in artistic imagery is well-documented; less so the vagina. When the vagina has been represented symbolically, it generally manifests in two forms: the flower and the vessel. In my post Deflowered, I addressed the latter in a particular context, namely the shattered or broken vessel as it represented the loss of virginity. Here we will examine the same symbol in its purer form, before it is broken. Thus, in Freudian terms we are looking at girls who are still sexually innocent. The symbolism is rarely conscious on the part of artists, but for a Freudian that hardly matters. Of particular concern to us are pieces from the heyday of Freudianism (late 19th to mid 20th century), when artists were more likely to be aware of the sexual symbolism in their work and could choose either to accentuate it or downplay it.
Our first couple of pieces are a pair of objets d’art from unknown artists, Niña con cántaro and Niña llevando un cántaro (Girl with Pitcher and Girl Carrying a Pitcher respectively). In the first, one of the girl’s sleeves has fallen off her shoulder, thus baring one of her nipples. As Journey Darkmoon pointed out in his Chauncey Bradley Ives post, the revelation of the little girl’s nipple symbolizes her innocence, as she is unaware of the deeper connotation of such an act. This, coupled with the vessel at her feet, symbolizes feminine innocence. In the second example, the girl is nude altogether (save for a couple of bows in her hair), but again her innocence is clear.
Artist Unknown – Niña con cántaro (ca. 1920)
Artist Unknown – Niña llevando un cántaro (1)
Artist Unknown – Niña llevando un cántaro (2)
The trend continues with this set from Lladró. The famous porcelain company’s history of producing charming child pieces is unrivaled.
Lladró – Little Peasant Girl (Blue, Yellow & Pink Variants)
A common theme running through all of these pieces is nudity, partial nudity or, as in the case of Bessie Potter Vonnoh‘s Garden Figure, an ephemeral sort of drapery. Again, this is all meant to reinforce the fact that these are innocent young girls. The vessels they bear are unbroken for a reason. Vonnoh’s little vessel bearer was later used as part of the Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain.
Bessie Potter Vonnoh – Garden Figure; ‘Garden Figure’ Maquette
Bessie Potter Vonnoh – Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain
Art Deco and other modern artists tended to focus on early adolescent models rather than prepubescent ones, such as this lighter/ashtray combo piece, Juan Cristobal‘s Niña con cántaro and Joseph Bernard‘s The Water Bearer.
Artist Unknown – Nude Girl with New Yorker Lighter and Ashtray (1929)
Juan Cristobal – Niña con cántaro (1926)
Joseph Bernard – The Water Bearer (1912)
One of my absolute favorite pieces in this vein is Peruvian sculptor Juan José Paredes Antezana’s Niña A. It’s difficult to pin down the date here but the style seems fairly modern.
Ricardo de Madrazo y Garreta – Regreso de la fuente (1878)
V. Marseille’s topless adolescent water bearer is a fine modern exemplar of the trend.
V. Marseille – Girl with Water Jug
Our sole photographic entry in this subject is a piece by Rudolf Lehnert and Ernst Landrock. Judging by the iconography on her vessel, this little girl appears to be Arabic or North African, possibly Egyptian. Lehnert & Landrock really deserve a dedicated post of their own on Pigtails. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable on the pair will do us the honor.
Lehnert & Landrock – (Title Unknown)
This sculpture of a boy and girl retrieving water, which I’ve posted here before, is one of the most blatantly Freudian pieces I’ve ever come across. Here we have two vessels, the water jug, which has a spigot and is held up by the young boy (one of the rare times when the vessel takes on a masculine aspect rather than a feminine one), and the cup in the little girl’s hand. Take note of the almost wanton look on the thirsty girl’s face as she raises her cup to be filled by the boy. Note too how uncomfortably close her cup is to the boy’s genitalia. The boy also sits above the girl, reflecting his sexual dominance of her. Clearly the artist who created this piece (Edme Marie Cadoux) did so with at least some degree of awareness of all these cues. That this would all be accidental seems rather unlikely to me.
Edme Marie Cadoux – At the Fountain (1887)
Otherwise, even when the vessel is borne by a male, it still retains its feminine attributes, which subtly suggests homosexuality. The context is certainly relevant in this piece by Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen. In this image we see the goddess Hebe, formerly the cup bearer of the gods, passing her serving vessels on to Ganymede, the boy who replaced her in this duty, while Zeus in his eagle form looks on. If you know your Greek myths, then you are well aware that young Ganymede was also one of Zeus’s lovers.
Bertel Thorvaldsen – Hebe and Ganymede
Speaking of Ganymede, he was the original representative for the zodiac sign Aquarius. Over time a girl or young woman tended to replace Zeus’s catamite in artistic representations of the sign for perhaps obvious reasons. Eduard Steinbrück‘s Die Nymphe der Düssel could’ve been the prototype for modern images of Aquarius. (See also the Deflowered post linked above for symbolism surrounding the adolescent girl dipping her toe into the water.)
Eduard Steinbrück – Die Nymphe der Düssel
Finally, we have a pair of candlesticks, a boy and a girl, by Edward Francis McCartan. Again, even the boy is rather feminized, all the more so for holding an amphora. These are certainly eroticized portrayals of youth, which McCartan was no stranger to.
Edward Francis McCartan – Children Holding Amphorae (early 20th cent.)(1)
Edward Francis McCartan – Children Holding Amphorae (early 20th cent.)(2)
Edward Francis McCartan – Children Holding Amphorae (early 20th cent.)(3)
Edward Francis McCartan – Girl Holding Amphora (early 20th cent.)(1)
Edward Francis McCartan – Girl Holding Amphora (early 20th cent.)(2)
In a previous article last year, I introduced the topic of porcelain dolls, illustrating it with my own acquisitions. My collection having grown both in quantity and in diversity, I think that the time has now come to post a sequel.
There are many types of dolls. First they can be made with various materials: cloth, plastic, etc. The ones I own have their head (and generally the visible body parts such as hands) made from a matte type of porcelain (without enamel) called bisque (biscuit in French). But the rest of the body can be made in several ways, as I will explain. Then they can represent different types of people. Mine belong to the category called baby (bébé in French), which means in fact small children; but in that category, I never buy babies and toddlers, nor boys; I collect only girls looking to be between the ages of 5 and 12. Finally, dolls vary according to the epoch of their making. My previous article showed what one calls modern dolls, most of them were recent models produced for the tourist market.
I will start with five modern dolls bought since last year. Their head, hands and forearms, feet and lower legs are in bisque, but the rest of the body is made with padded tissue. The assembling of limbs is not always perfect, so that while they are held from their waist on a metallic holder (under their dress), their hanging legs can slightly slant to one side, and their feet be somewhat turned. One can minimize this defect in photography by taking the picture from a suitable angle and rotating it by 1 or 2 degrees.
I show first a small redhead (40 cm without the hat), with rustic clothes.
The next four dolls (as the last two in the previous article) were made by the German company Reinart Faelens Kunstgewerbe GmbH, whose brand name is rf collection. On the label one can read:
Decorative doll for collectors, minimum age: 14 years! No toy! Small parts can break and be swallowed!
Indeed, they are not intended for little girls, but for adults. I show here my two loveliest ones. I consider them twins: I bought them on the same day, they have the same size (42 cm without the hat), and their clothes are similar.
I call the last one (54 cm without the hat) the green fairy, because of her green dress, but also because she stands next to the glass cabinet where I keep my absinthe.
Now I show my big doll, she measures exactly one meter. I bought her last year in a flea market in Strasbourg. As with modern dolls, her head and hands are in bisque, and her body in padded tissue, but her lower legs and feet seem to be made of painted tissue covering some light and flexible matter, maybe cardboard. As it often happens with second-hand dolls, her soiled face needed some washing, and her dusty bloomers and petticoat required a laundry. She has been featured in Agapeta, where I showed her sprawling on a sofa. But I decided that her dignity (and my comfort) required buying a chair for her. And she even got her own doll, a very old one.
Before describing the latter, I must introduce the topic of vintage bisque dolls. They often date from the early 20th century, sometimes from the 19th. They are rather expensive, generally costing several hundred euros; I even saw a beautiful 19th century doll by a renowned maker, in perfect condition, priced 13 000 euros! The body can be made from various materials, such as tissue, wood, “composition” (imitation of bisque), or a kind of painted papier mâché. Often the arms are articulated, and instead of dropping, they can be held raised thanks to elastic rubber attached to them inside. Generally the hair and the clothes are recent replacements; in fact they often have real human hair, in contrast to modern dolls that have synthetic hair (hence, because of reflections, they should be photographed without a flash). Given the sophistication of their moving body parts, it seems that they were not decorative dolls, but real toys.
German dolls from the early 20th century usually have the brand name, model and geographic origin engraved at the back of the head. This one is a series 250.0 of the maker Ernst Heubach in Koppelsdorf, Germany. I bought it from an antiquarian in Strasbourg, who dates it from around 1900. As another site states: “The Germany inscription reinforces the early 1900 date. Starting in the early 1920’s the US started requiring the ‘Made in Germany’ mark on imports.” She has “sleeping eyes”, that is, her upper eyelids close when she lies on her back. Her articulated shoulders and elbows can both fold and rotate as in humans, and her wrists can rotate. Her legs are articulated at the hips and knees (but without elastic to prevent them from dropping down). Note also her open mouth.
Ernst Heubach Dolls, Koppelsdorf, Germany – Heubach Koppelsdorf 250.0 (1900–1920)
I bought the next vintage doll at the Musée de la Poupée in Paris. It is a series MOA 200 made for the brand Welsch & Company by Max Oscar Arnold in Neustadt, Germany. I was told that it is dated 1940; however I think it could perhaps be older, since according to the reference site, the Max Oscar Arnold Doll Company operated until 1930. Since she wears a nightgown, I put her in my bedroom. She also has an open mouth, limbs rotating and folding at the hips, knees, shoulders and elbows, and rotating wrists. I had to untangle her hair, but I do not dare use a comb to groom it, since it might be torn from the felt scalp—so I leave it wildly spread around her face.
Max Oscar Arnold Dolls, Neustadt, Germany – MOA 200 Welsch (c1940)
Readers who looked carefully at the previous post may have noticed that another doll was standing at that place in my bedroom; indeed the latter moved to my kitchen.
My last doll, the most expensive one, was also bought at the Musée de la Poupée in Paris. They date it 1945. It was made by Monica Doll Studios, Hollywood, CA, USA. Her arms and legs are rigid; they move only at the elbows and hips. But while the trunk and limbs of the two German dolls were rather rough in their making, Monica’s body is made in the same material as her face, and with the same quality. So maybe it was a decorative doll, not a toy.
Monica Doll Studios, Hollywood, CA USA (1945)
Here we can see her from another angle.
Monica Doll Studios, Hollywood, CA USA (1945)
I am not sure whether I will buy any more dolls. They fill my apartment, I am starting to run out of room for them.
And we’re back in Gaul with François Moreau, better known as Hippolyte, one of three sculptor brothers who were the sons of another sculptor, Jean-Baptiste Moreau. I’m guessing that Jean-Baptiste really wanted his kids to follow in the old man’s footsteps! Well they certainly did. Although Hippolyte, the middle brother, was somewhat overshadowed by the baby of the family, Auguste, he did some wonderful stuff in his own right.
Hippolyte was born in Dijon in 1834, a full ten years after his older brother Mathuri, and Auguste would come along about two years after Hippolyte. He exhibited his work at the Salon throughout the late 1800s up until 1914. His sculptures even won awards at both the Exposition Universelle of 1878 and the Exposition Universelle of 1900. His most reknowned piece is a statue of French scientist Alexis Clairaut at the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, the Paris Town Hall. He died in Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1927. The majority of his works are now housed at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon.
Hippolyte’s pieces, like his younger brother’s, have often been rendered as objets d’art and that’s the case with all but one of the examples shown here. Our first piece is Le Petit Chaperon Rouge. You know who that is don’t you? A certain little girl with a red cape who is off to see her grandma with a basket of goodies, that’s who!
Hippolyte Moreau – Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (1)
Hippolyte Moreau – Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (2)
Hippolyte Moreau – Le Petit Chaperon Rouge (3)
And speaking of little girls with baskets…
Hippolyte Moreau – Girl with Basket (1)
Hippolyte Moreau – Girl with Basket (2)
Hippolyte Moreau – Girl with Basket (3)
Hippolyte Moreau – Girl with Basket (4)
Here’s a sweet little lady with a tiny guitar.
Hippolyte Moreau – Fillette musicienne (Fillette à la guitare) (1)
Hippolyte Moreau – Fillette musicienne (Fillette à la guitare) (2)
Hippolyte Moreau – Fillette musicienne (Fillette à la guitare) (3)
Hippolyte Moreau – Fillette musicienne (Fillette à la guitare) (4)
One of Moreau’s favorite subjects was the child couple as represented by the last three pieces.
Hippolyte Moreau – (Title Unknown) (1)
Hippolyte Moreau – (Title Unknown) (2)
Hippolyte Moreau – (Title Unknown) (3)
Hippolyte Moreau – (Title Unknown) (4)
Hippolyte Moreau – (Title Unknown) (5)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux chérubins (1)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux chérubins (2)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux chérubins (3)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux chérubins (4)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux chérubins (5)
Hippolyte Moreau – Deux jeunes enfants avec couronne et guirlande de fleurs
I was just informed by a close colleague that I am incorrect on both counts regarding my suggestion that these images are mannequins. Please read the notes at the bottom for clarification. -Ron
The last two of Pip’s “test” images are not photographs of actual girls. Depending on your definition, they might be called dolls or mannequins. When I got these, I had just learned that there was a whole artistic discipline dedicated to producing these dolls, not to mention the collectors who restore them. I acquired a couple of books on the subject which I will review in due course, but I am hoping someone will come forward who is more expert than I am to inform readers about this remarkable field. The artists credited here are the photographers, not the producers of the mannequins.
Anoush Abrar and Aimée Hoving met during their college years and started working together in 2003 starting mainly as portrait photographers, but gradually made their way in the world of fashion photography. Their approach was to take fashion photos the way one would photograph art. The pair stopped working together near the end of 2012.
Anoush Abrar and Aimée Hoving – Adelina
After examining Jacqueline Roberts’ curriculum vitae and body of work, Pigtails will have to do a proper post on her at some point. She was born in Paris in 1969, studied Political Science and then took up the camera. She is completely self-taught. Her key inspiration is Julia Margaret Cameron and like her (and Sally Mann), she likes to work with more antiquated photographic methods. She feels today’s techniques make the images too disposable and she wishes to make them “precious” again.
Jacqueline Roberts – Noli me tangere
Comment: I recall that the first image went along with some article about the sexualization of girls or something of the kind. It is intended to convey the idea of a girl who is basically a toy of the fashion industry. If you look at her shirt, you can see her nipples are very much rounded and a little dark; they wouldn’t do that on an actual mannequin. The second image is of Jacqueline Roberts’ daughter. You can see her in several of the series at her website, especially ‘Kindred Spirits’ and ‘Under the Influence’. The photo has been digitally manipulated. If you look closely, you can see where the mannequin ends and the real girl begins about halfway up her chest. The mannequin is slightly shinier and a little different color.
My Response: Well, it appears that I failed the test here. The reason I thought the first image was a mannequin was because the way the shirt hung on the shoulders (and to some degree, the look of the clavicle). It didn’t feel as though it “stuck” properly like it would on real skin. I have to disagree about the level of detail that are put into these dolls. Perhaps an ordinary mannequin would not have this kind of detail, but realistic dolls do (and I hope to feature some here). I did visit Roberts’ site and noticed that same girl and so I did have doubts, but with digital manipulation, how can we be sure whether an image is digitally manipulated or an artist has produced a hyperrealistic doll? I suppose it would make sense to assume photographic manipulation since it is much easier to do. But I would like to assure readers that there are some dolls out there that look shockingly like the real thing, especially when viewing only the bust.
[160117] Here is some follow up information:
There is a French PDF file where the author discusses Adelina:
Anoush agrémente notamment tous les deux ans une collection de séquences mettant en scène Adelina, 11 ans en 2005, se trémoussant sur le tube du moment à la manière des clips vidéo qui passent en boucle sur MTV. Une manière de montrer – par le passage de l’enfance à l’adolescence, puis à l’âge adulte – le temps qui passe et modifie les notions d’innocence et de conscience de soi. «Moi, j’aime les visages et les corps qui se marquent. C’est quelque chose qui m’intéresse, la décrépitude.» Quant à Aimée, elle explore les nombreuses possibilités du portrait en replaçant par exemple des avocats de la place dans le cadre de leur bureau, des jeunes filles dans leur chambre d’internat ou des femmes adultes dans la maison qui les a vues grandir. «Quand j’ai enfin un peu de temps pour moi, je me mets à réfléchir au temps qui passe. Et c’est ce qui m’effraie le plus, car on ne peut pas lutter contre le quotidien qui t’emmène dans sa course et que tu ne peux que suivre.» En photographie, le temps qui passe semble en fin de compte beaucoup plus présent qu’on ne l’imagine.
English Translation:
Anoush decorates including all two years a collection of sequences starring Adelina, 11 years in 2005, fidgeting on the tube of the moment like video clips passing loop on MTV. A way to show – by the passage from childhood to adolescence and then adulthood – the time that passes and amends the concepts of innocence and self-awareness. “Me, I like the faces and bodies that will mark. It’s something that interests me, decrepitude.” As Aimée, she explores the possibilities of the portrait replacing for example lawyers to place in their office, young girls in their boarding room or adult women in the House which saw them grow. “When I finally have a little time for me, I start to think about the time that passes. And this is what frightens me the most, because we cannot fight against the daily that takes you on his race and that you can follow.” In photography, the time that passes seems much more present than we imagine ultimately.
Apparently there was a plan for a whole series of photos featuring Adelina, at age 11, as she transitioned from childhood to adulthood. It is not known if this project was ever completed, but there seems to be only this single photo posted online. At least some other photographs must exist and perhaps someone fluent in French could contact these photographers to discover what became of them.
A traditional craft in some parts of Germany and in neighboring regions such as Alsace is the making of dolls whose head, neck, forearms and lower legs are in porcelain. Often their facial features are painted by hand, and nice dolls have their eyes in painted glass, with eyelashes attached to the eyelids. The rest of the body, being covered by clothes, usually consists of padded tissue.
Dolls can be found in various styles. Some resemble young women and look a bit like Barbie, while others represent babies or toddlers. But the classical model is the “romantic” doll, a 9-year-old girl dressed in Victorian style with a robe going down just under the knees, bloomers covering the legs and high laced boots; they generally have long hair, often with plaits. The price varies according to size and quality, but you can count 150€ (about $159 US) for a good quality 60cm doll.
In order to make them stand upright, one fastens around their waist a metallic holder attached to a wooden base. Under the base of the ones I have, there is a warning label:
Purely decorative item. Not suitable as a toy for children!
Indeed, porcelain dolls are a gift for adults, not for children. Adult fans will collect them, cherishing and admiring each one.
I will present here photographs of my dolls as they stand in their “natural environment” inside my apartment. I start with one that I bought second-hand in a flea market in Brussels at the end of the eighties. It is not particularly beautiful, her eyes are just painted, but her pale lunar appearance imparts to her some mystery and for a long time I fancied her having magical powers. She sits next to my CDs and DVDs.
I have another old doll of a similar style, which I bought last year in a second-hand shop in Strasbourg. She reminded me that a second-hand doll is sometimes like a neglected child, left alone in a dusty place, who needs care. To make her pretty again, I had to wash her robe and bloomers, brush her face and hands with a soap-covered toothbrush, shampoo her hair then untangle them individually (a comb is too hard). Now she sits as a shy girl in an old chair on a small table next to a big dresser.
My other dolls were new ones bought in a souvenir shop. I show first the “twins”. I bought them the same day, they are the same size (32cm) and they stand facing each other in a showcase. I like the quite modern pink clothes of the second one; they give her a very sensual look.
The next one (40cm without the hat), my latest acquisition, is special because her face looks more like that of a 5-year-old.
My sixth doll (42cm without the cap), standing over my writing desk, has quite rustic clothes but her deep eyes captivate me sometimes.
The next one (49cm without the hat) is in my bedroom. Look into her eyes; she seems so serious!
I end with my two big ones. First a gorgeous redhead (58cm without the hat) with a beautiful robe covered with flowers; as it fits, she stands over a marble table.
And now for my biggest and favorite (60cm). Her grey clothes are modest, but her face and smile ravish me, especially with her head slightly tilted to the right. Her hairstyle is very original, she has short hair overall, with two long plaits on each side; notice also the long side-locks in front of her ears, exactly like the “payot” worn by orthodox Jewish men and boys. She stands next to my computer and guards me when I am communicating or blogging through the Internet.
Here is a close-up of her beautiful face.
Collecting dolls requires patience. Often one finds some whose face or smile is not engaging, or whose hands look crooked. A careful examination, especially of the porcelain parts, is necessary before purchasing it.
Update (2016/02/06): The two larger dolls come from the collection “Adele´s Puppenhaus” of the German company Reinart Faelens Kunstgewerbe GmbH.
