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Antique DOLL Collector July 2011 Vol. 14, No. 6

July 2011 Vol. 14, No. 6 $595 / $695 Canada www.antiquedollcollector.com

This china has a high forehead with hair parted in the middle on top, then falling into backward - facing large rolls at the sides, and at the back a braided chignon forms a complicated figure eight in the middle.

Lovely French Rohmer china, dressed for an afternoon walk in a pale orange full length dress with a braided trim, green cape trimmed in beige fabric, an orange hat with blue feathers, and a black muff, trimmed in white rabbit fur. She has china feet.

A doll with an interestingly patterned print dress in greens and reds. Her hair is parted in the center and it is rolled to the back with a center part. Her ears are exposed.

Those Rare, Elegant China Head Dolls by Maureen Herrod

pon being asked over a year ago to do a program on china head dolls by the Cuesta Doll and Study Club of which I am a member, I demurred because I didn’t own many chinas and did not know much about them. The club insisted. So, to comply with my club’s wishes, I set out to do a learned and viable program on these lovely porcelain dolls. Since I was not an avid collector of chinas, this project was deﬁnitely harder than most. Luckily, I knew a few collectors who had some very rare ones. I bought the book A Pictorial Reference Guide to German Chinas by Mary Gorham Krombholz. What a revelation! Now, I had meat that I could attach to the bones of my meager knowledge. Not that I was necessarily able to identify many of the dolls that my collector friends owned, but I felt more comfortable with the subject and plowed ahead. 24

Brush marks show around the doll’s hairline in this side view of the lady in the green and red print dress. The back of the doll’s head is a cluster of ringlet curls, similar to a parian doll that has the same cluster of curls, which are removable.

Blond china with a royal blue hair band. Her hair is combed back from her forehead and sides revealing a partial view of the ears. Large ringlets fall down onto the doll’s back.

Sad-faced china with brown eyes. Her hair is rolled back on the sides over the ears with multiple brush marks around the face. The hair is then caught up in a big chignon in back.

When I was planning the china program for the Cuesta Club, I asked the members to bring what china heads they owned. Much to my surprise, the majority of the dolls that were brought to the meeting were what are called “low brows.” “Low brows” are china dolls that were made later in the 19th century and well into the 20th. They are quite lovely and subtly differ from each other in their painting. However, they all have a very similar hairdo, short with a center part with poufs of curls on either side of the head. The front of the hair lays on the doll’s forehead, thus the term describing the style of the doll. Many were probably made by the Hertwig Company and are somewhat easy to ﬁnd these days. That is a very nice feature because most collectors can ﬁnd them and

A doll that is almost identical to one in Mary Krombholz’s book on page 151. The doll pictured here is a blond, whereas the doll in the book has black hair. Both dolls made by the Conta & Boehme Company. The back of the Conta & Boehme doll shows her hair caught up in a black band and black snood. 25

How a SASHA STUDIO by Susan Steirn

This generic Sashapuppe (referred to as “impostor” or “fake Sasha”) is 18 ½ inches, a good inch shorter than true Sashas with cloth bodies, and has a molded socket head, possibly from resin, with a crudely sculpted face that bears no resemblance to any of Sasha’s facemasks. It wears a middy blouse gathered with a drawstring over the waist of a long skirt, again not of Sasha’s style.

PHOTO: ANNE VOTAW

PHOTO: LORETTA NARDONE

uring World War II, the Swiss artist Sasha Morgenthaler (1893-1975), witnessing first-hand the flight of refugees through her neutral country, determined to design a doll that would foster concern for humanity. She felt strongly that her doll must seem alive to bond with the child: the doll’s face should be neutral, capable of empathy and give the illusion of changeable moods. The doll also must have a realistic, asymmetrical body and wear ordinary clothes. From the early 1940s until her death in 1975, Sasha, working alone or with a small team, created about 7,000 unique, expensive Sasha dolls in her Zurich studio, selling them throughout the world. Her dream, though, was for Sasha to be an inexpensive, sturdy play doll and over the decades, beginning in 1965 and continuing, with interruptions, until 2001, two manufacturers—the German Götz Puppenfabrik and the English firm Frido helped her pursue that dream by producing 16-inch vinyl versions of the 20-inch Studio Sashas. The following articles focus on the Studio Sashas.

have been collecting dolls for well over thirty years. My collection includes both antique and modern dolls dating from the mid 1800s to the present. Dolls of all materials— china, bisque, cloth, composition and hard plastic—adorn my doll room. The passion of my collection, and the subject of much of my doll research, however, is the Studio dolls of Sasha Morgenthaler. Imagine my recent excitement as I opened an e-mail from a nationally known dealer offering me one of these treasured Studio dolls. But as soon as I scrolled down to the doll’s picture, I knew immediately that she was not authentic. The doll’s face was not one of Sasha’s four mold types used for her Studio dolls. Noticing this, I immediately sent the photograph to my friend Anne Votaw, who, together with Ann Louise Chandler and Susanna E. Lewis, has just completed a book on the history of Sasha

dolls (Sasha Dolls: The History), which will be published this July by Reverie Publishing Company. Anne conﬁrmed my feelings that this doll was not a Studio Sasha. I then contacted the dealer and expressing my disappointment, informed her that this was not an authentic Studio Sasha doll. The dealer was rightfully upset and sent me the doll for closer examination. With the doll in hand, it was easy to identify the similarities and differences between it and authentic Studio dolls. The impostor has a human-hair wig like Sasha’s Studio dolls. While her clothes appear to be made from old fabric, as Sasha liked to use, the clothing is not fashioned in Sasha’s style. The doll is smaller than a Studio Sasha and the head appears to be made of crudely molded resin. The body is covered in cotton sateen, not the tricot fabric used by Sasha. Finally, a knowledgeable Sasha collector would

IMPOSTOR Was Caught

PHOTO: LORETTA NARDONE

The generic Sashapuppe body, right, does not match Sasha’s cloth B-body constructions, left, or Sasha A-or D-bodies: This generic body, right, appears to be made from cotton sateen rather than cotton tricot; it has a waist and its body construction differs in that sewn hinge shoulder joints are combined with rotationally jointed legs. Unlike Sasha’s B-body, the generic doll is not seamed down center back. The fabric, shape, stringing and jointing differ altogether. Claudia is a circa 1960-1967 BIII Studio Sasha portrait doll, with a hard-plastic socket head and shoulderplate attached to a rotational tricot cloth body. The head of the generic Sashapuppe cannot even begin to compare with the beauty of this Studio Sasha head, facemask III. (Photo: Anne Votaw)

notice quite quickly the doll’s eyes. The painting of the facial features is not up to the quality of Sasha’s work. What we know about this doll is that she was bought from a dealer in Lucerne, Switzerland, by an American collector in 1993. There is an accompanying letter stating that the doll was about sixty years old at the time of purchase and was made by Sasha as a gift for a lady who lived in Lucerne. It is unlikely that this doll was made as early as the 1930s, and as far as any research shows, Sasha neither lived in Lucerne nor made dolls in the 1930s. The letter also mentions that the doll was not signed because it was not a commercial doll. In fact, Sasha did not sign her cloth-bodied Studio dolls. In 1995, this American collector brought this doll to a Sasha Festival where Anne examined her and veriﬁed that she was not made by Sasha Morgenthaler. Since that time,

the doll went to auction with a reputable auction house, where it was sold to a second American collector. In 2010 it was listed on eBay. Anne noticed this listing and notiﬁed the seller that the doll was not authentic. The doll was withdrawn from eBay. This doll ﬁnally ended up in the hands of the reputable dealer who offered her to me. Thanks to this dealer, the doll has been removed from the marketplace, so as not to fool another unsuspecting collector, and entrusted to me to use for educational purposes. The lesson is that collectors need to know how to identify these beautiful dolls. The forthcoming book is an excellent resource for anyone wanting to own a wonderful one-of-a-kind Studio Sasha. The following article is adapted from the section of the book titled “Identifying Studio Sashas.”

by Dee Urquhart-Ross

Henri wears a very sweet little Marquis style Mozart era outfit comprising a silk/ satin striped waistcoat with button front, cotton lining and back, knee length trousers with decorative buttons on the sides and a wonderfully shaped 18th century Marquis type top coat with large cuffs and decorative buttons down both sides of the coat. Lovely early lace jabot and cuffs and a little velvet tricorn hat edged with green braid complete his outfit. Jumeau and Bru in particular used Marquis style outfits in their special tableaus at the large Expositions at which the coveted gold and silver medals were awarded. The miniature ebony walking stock was discovered at a Paris antiques emporium.

am sure I am not the only collector of French Bebes who, as much as I love my petite beauties and their wonderful outfits, has nonetheless longed from time to time for a counter-point to all their boundless beauty and perfection and been drawn to one or two quirky dolls to amuse and intrigue. I was lucky enough to find one such delightful little doll recently who fitted my collecting criteria (in a slightly vain hope of setting some sort of boundary to what I do in fact collect, otherwise I fear there would be no room at home for myself) being French, by a wonderful maker and of being a doll I just had to have to enhance my collection. “Henri” totally fits the bill on all these points! He is a wonderful double face by Bru. He is funny, quirky, and an unusually large size, being some 23” tall. He tugged at my heartstrings as soon as I saw him and he had to come home with me because of that fact alone! Henri is mounted on the original yellow toned composition Bru body which was introduced in 1887 during the Girard era of the firm. He has a solid dome to his head with a small hole on top through which the metal turning mechanism protrudes and is neatly flattened to the dome of the head and is invisible under the wig. The sheepskin wig is stationary, attached over the dome and is turned with the head. The neck is flange cut and fits down into the neck socket of the composition and wood body. The head turns smoothly within the neck socket, with its exact attachment hidden from view inside the body, turning by hand to reveal facing to the front, either a smiling cheerful face or the “crying” visage. As is usual the head is completely unmarked with no incised letters or numbers. One wonders how many of these were made in total as they are hard to find and I have seldom seen the larger models such as

Here shown with the smiling face turned to the front. The bisque on this face is much paler and the detail in the molding of the face is very deeply etched with rounded cheeks, very detailed mouth and as on the other face, showing another set of lovely blue paperweight eyes.

The Crying/Singing face of the double face Bru showing the “antic” expression with the typical broad little nose and the deeply molded open/closed mouth. The dome head with its attachment/turning pin seen on the top. The wig fits over this and the mechanism is thus rendered invisible with no protruding knob. The wig is fixed and the head turns manually.

Henri. And would they appeal to a child? I think the initial novelty of a doll with two faces may have caused over-enthusiastic little owners to break a fair number. I also imagine that one face, probably the smiling one, would have quickly become the favorite of the average child, as it would appear to be the “pretty” face. I myself prefer the “crying” or “screaming” side with its much redder complexion. I think however that there is another way to look at this face ... simply by placing a small sheet of music (reduced at the local photocopy shop to the appropriate scale) in the little fellow’s hands, Henri is seen to be singing his little heart out and turning pink with effort to reach those elusive high notes! By the same token, place a miniature crab or lobster in his hand and he is definitely screaming in pain as his small fingers are nipped by his catch! Thus the double-faced Bru can have in fact at least three personalities within his repertoire! You may have noticed that I refer to this doll as “he”. When Henri arrived he was dressed as a girl in flounces and lace and looked very

This rather surreal looking view of the head shows it half turned between the expressions with the double ears clearly shown.

sorry for himself having been forced into this “cross-dressing” mould by some previous owner as the clothes were not original and of the full skirted type which rendered the doll rather bulky and ill-proportioned. He also had a rather mangy long brown wig which did not fit on top of his original sheepskin one which was matted and flattened. This wig completely covered the face to the back of the doll which was never the case with two-faced dolls which usually had a well shaped sheepskin wig cut to frame each face. So, Henri was instantly treated to a quick sex change and acquired a cute antique sailor suit which I had stored away and which fitted him perfectly. I was also moved to search out a few more boyish outfits that had just been waiting for him to come along and claim them, so now Henri is all set as a little boy showing his sunny (and otherwise) moods to the world, dressed to complement his boyish demeanor! The double-faced Bru was obviously made over the whole Right: A front view of the doll undressed to show the Bru composition and wood body with the typical yellowish hue of the body paint. The neck of the head is nicely recessed into a specially shaped neck socket for this model which gives a well balanced look to the whole doll.

A view of the smiling face showing the neat fixing of the neck into a specially designed widened neck socket on the body. Note also how the ears are shown perfectly on each side of the head achieved by the clever adding of four ears to this model of Bru.