"Dolls, dress'd and naked. . ." 18th century wooden dolls

I've alway loved dolls and have a bit of collection of Victorian and early/mid 20th century dolls.  Fashion dolls have always been my favorites.  30 years ago or so, I made porcelain reproduction French and German fashion dolls.  Those are packed away.  About 6 years ago, I got an 18th century wooden doll kit from Larkin and Smith so I finally pulled her out out to make.  I only had images of extant dolls that were dressed or paintings containing dolls.  Let's look at some of them.

Alexander Van Haeck 1730

                                 William Hogarth:  Children at Play:  The Doll's Tea Party

John Wollaston:  Elizabeth Randolph

                                             Johann Zoffany:  Charlotte Augusta Matilda

                          Charles Willson Peale:  Mann Page and Elizabeth Page  1750s

                                            Jean-Etienne Liotard:  Marianne Liotard 1765

Paul Sandby:  Seated Girl with a Doll

Paul Sandby:  Woman and Child Holding a Doll 1758-60

                                                          John Collet:  Peasants Dancing

                        Charles Willson Peale:  Peggy Sanderson Hughes and daughter 1789

                                   John Singleton Copley:  Copley Family Portrait 1776-77

Charles Willson Peale:  Ann Proctor 1770s

                             Joseph Wright of Derby:  Two Girls Dressing a Kitten 1768

                    William Hoare:  Christopher Anstey and his daughter Mary-Ann 1776

Note that there are images with lower/working sort people as well as upper sort.  The dolls all appear to be quite similar which implies that they were enjoyed across the social classes.

Let's look at a few wood dolls.

Letitia Penn doll (William Penn's daughter) 1699.

                                          18th century doll.  Wood, gesso, glass eyes

18th century doll face close up

Early 18th century doll, clothes 1770-80.  Colonial Williamsburg

22 inch wood doll (no date)

9.5 inch dolls--only hips are jointed.  1780

wood, gesso, glass, human hair; 22 inche;  Colonial Williamsburg, 1775

And my favorite:

wood, gesso, glass, 23 inches tall;  Victoria and Albert Museum

Here's what came with the above doll:

I can't help but wonder if some of these dolls were kept by adults given the pristine condition of their clothing.  Most of them are larger than I expected.  All are wood with most also noting gesso which I assume to be mainly on the faces.  Most, if not all, have inset glass eyes.  Most seem to be fully articulated--with jointed knees and elbows.  The small dolls in the plain frocks only have jointed hips.

There's a fascinating account in The Old Bailey: Joseph Phips. Jane Tinsley. Theft; other. 4th April 1733.

" Joseph Phips , and Jane Tinsley , were indicted for stealing a Matted Chair, 14 naked Babies, and 2 Dozen of dress'd Babies, and one jointed Baby , the Goods of William Higgs , March 21."

Joseph Phips was Mr. Higgs' apprentice and Jane Tinsley was his journeywoman.  Mr. Higgs, a turner by trade,  made the wood dolls and his wife dressed them.  The dolls are referred to as babies--a bit of curiosity given the lack of evidence of actual baby dolls.  Dolls of the day seemed to be fashion dolls--18th century Barbies, if you will.  

In 1779, Sarah Bache wrote to her father, Benjamin Franklin asking him to send a doll for her 2 year old Betsy:

"Willy and our little Black ey’d parrot [Betsy] who I am sure you would be fond of if you knew her, (she is just the age Will was when you came from england, and goes down stairs just like him) both join in love to you, she desires you would send her a doll not a fine one, but one that will bear to be pul’d about with a great deal of Nursing, there is no such things to be had here as toys for Children"

A year and a half later,  Sarah wrote to her father  noting that the children had the doll stripped and were bathing it.

You can read about this on John Bell's blog here.  Thanks to Ruth Hodges for giving me that link!

From American Art Vol. 20, No.2

Serious Daughters:  Dolls, Dress, and Female Virtue in the 18th Century by Leslie Reinhardt, 2006

"Because there was no real distinction betweeen the dolls used to display the latest fashion and those used as toys, these objects linked fashion with child's play.  They identified the women who viewed them with the girls who played with them.  Girls could see in these dolls, which were dressed in adult styles, pictures of womanhood and imagine the women they would become.  Conversely, grown women could look to the dolls' apparel for hints on fashionable attire.  Even with dolls clearly intended as toys for little girls in this period, there were constant references to adult interest and involvement in both production and reception.  For example, Thomas Shippen was aware of the wider implications when he sent the English doll to his niece Peggy Livingston, a contemporary of Elizabeth Gilmore, in America.  This doll had been dressed entirely by a workshop of adult professionals, and he knew that women as well as his niece would study it.  Dolls were such important markers of fashion that Shippen joked that he was afraid women would imitate his gift doll's lopsided, badly painted mouth."

From JASNA Persuasions No. 32: "I was tempted by a pretty coloured muslin": Jane Austen and the Art of Being Fashionable by Mary Haftner-Laney

"Consulting with one's dressmaker or mantua-maker, as she was often known, was another way to determine what was fashionable.  It was important that a dressmaker keep up to date with the latest fashion trends.  A dressmaker who could not advise on and construct a stylish garment would soon have no business.  To illustrate current fashion trends, a dressmaker might have in her shop a fashion doll to show to customers.  The use of fashion dolls, commonly known as Pandoras, dates back to the Middle Ages (Fraser 39).  In Jane Austen's time, as now, French fashion was considered cutting edge and the most stylish.French fashion dolls would be sent to England, and in turn English fashion dolls would be sent to America (Fraser 42).  In addition, paper dolls illustrating the latest in wardrobes, headdresses and coiffures began to spread throughout Europe and England starting in the late 1700s (Fraser 43)."

All of this reminds me of the original Barbie dolls which had incredibly detailed, well made fashions.  I still have mine from the 1960s and they are so different than the cheap imported clothing made for play that my daughter played with in the 1980s/90s.

My guess is that few of the 18th century dolls that were really played with didn't survive.  While wood may be durable, the gesso, hair and clothing certainly wouldn't have survived in the condition we see in museum pieces. Some fashion dolls were made of wax or papier mache which I suspect would have been even more fragile.  My plan for my little wood doll kit is to dress her as a fashion doll to use in my millinery/ mantua maker living history work.  She certainly won't be as elaborate as the extants above.  The carving on the doll kit is so much plainer and of course she doesn't have glass eyes.  I don't think those things will matter so much since the focus will be on the clothing.  

The next post will be about the doll project.