Antique DOLL Collector September 2012 Vol. 15, No. 8
September 2012 Vol. 15, No. 8 $595 / $695 Canada www.antiquedollcollector.com
An unusually large wired eyed Steiner marked Fre A “21” on the rear of the head. This desirable French Bebe is 37” tall with deep blue eyes, an open mouth with upper and lower teeth, fine pale bisque and is on a fully jointed composition Steiner body which is in excellent original finish. Dressed in antique clothing & shoes, a blonde mohair wig & with the typical straw hat that is synonymous with Steiner Bebe’s. $6500 A 13” Bru Brevette marked 2/0 on the rear of the head. An exceptional early Brevette with breath taking blue threaded paperweight eyes, mauve eye shadow, pale bisque, her original skin wig, on the proper kid body with bisque lower arms (tip of one forefinger missing). Wearing antique clothing and shoes, she is the perfect cabinet size doll. The kid body has a slight “sitting” position with legs turned to the left but otherwise the overall condition of the kid is very good. $15,000 A 16” Oriental/Mulatto Belton with a Bru Circle Dot appearance. Often times German manufacturers emulated the French manufactures of dolls copying facial features thus producing similar dolls but at much more affordable prices. This particular doll has the typical Circle Dot Bru mouth, she is dressed in antique clothing, possibly original to her, and a black mohair wig of the period. Her overall complexion is more olive toned as well as the original finish on the composition straight wristed body, she could easily pass as either oriental or mulatto heritage. The bisque is flawless with no cheek rubs, eyechips, etc. and her brown paperweight eyes further add to her allure. $1600
&
Connie
Jay
LOWE
A pair of all original 10-1/2” A. M. dolls purchased by the former owner in 1953 at the New York Armory Show for $5 each! Dressed in their original matching outfits this boy and girl are in untouched as found condition with the original stringing (a bit loose). $475pr
A 23” J. D. Kestner “A.T.”, one of this German firms most highly sort after, by collectors, dolls. Kestner emulated/copied the overall facial expression of the desirable French Bebe manufactured by A. Thullier. This gal has the facial awe inspiring appearance that not only appeals to collectors but by anyone that appreciates beauty. Too many words would be needed to describe her allure so best just to look at the picture and let your mind appreciate this classic German doll. Flawless pale bisque, blue glass sleep eyes, antique clothing & wig, this doll is on a fully jointed straight wristed composition body. $8500
P.O. Box 5206 Lancaster, PA 17606 • FAX 717-396-1114 • Call Toll Free 1-888-JAY LOWE or (717) 396-9879 • Email: big.birds@comcast.net
Always Looking to Buy Quality Dolls, Toys, Marklin Doll Carriages or Entire Estates • Buy & Sell With Confidence • Member of UFDC & NADDA 18
ANTIQUE DOLL COLLECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2012
French Dream
by Kathy Embry
I
She stands 30 inches tall in her antique attire. She now has an antique blond mohair wig to adorn her round full face. Her long narrow shoes fit her perfectly. She has bulbous pale blue eyes outlined with a darker blue iris circle. Notice the blue threading inside her iris. Her delicate lips have painted highlights on top and bottom with a darker painted line between. Her long curved eyebrows have feathered strokes over a light brow line.
t happened at an UFDC convention in the sales room on a Tuesday afternoon, after the rush of Monday night madness. My husband and my partner in doll collecting and I always like to go back and take our time the next afternoon when the sales room re-opens. We were browsing up and down aisles when a unique looking French bebe took our breath away as we both simultaneously stared at her in a well known dealer’s sales booth. It was love at first sight. What was she? Where had she come from? How did we miss her the first night and how was she still standing there today? She certainly stood tall at 30 inches. We learned she had been in the famous Mary Merritt Doll Museum and sold at one of the auctions to liquidate the collections when the museum closed its doors in 2006. Later after looking her up in the auction catalog, we could see how she was not recognizable since her wig and clothes were now quite different. Her former attire was not worthy of this gorgeous face. The dealer knew this too and appropriately changed her wig and clothes. After the details were agreed upon my French dream doll was coming home with us! As we carried her out past other dealers and friends, everyone couldn’t help but notice her so we asked opinions about who they thought may have produced her. Most didn’t know or weren’t sure, but all agreed she was gorgeous! I knew I would want to do some research and try to figure out which French manufacturer most likely produced this lovely early child doll and so I have been studying and this is what I have learned. She definitely fits into the Schmitt requirements due to her unique distinctive body style. These bodies have a flatcut shaping of the derriere rim (where the Schmitt crossed hammer insignia usually appears on the flat-cut edge). My doll’s body does not have this mark. They have large ball joints in the shoulders, elbows, knees and hips, gauntlet shaped forearms with straight wrists and slightly separated fingers on their cupped hands. The lower legs are muscular with a ANTIQUE DOLL COLLECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2012
19
Enjoy the beautiful coastal village of Camden, Maine located on the pristine Penobscot Bay. 49 Bay View Street, Camden, ME 04843 The shop is now open 7 days a week, Monday-Saturday 10-4 and Sunday 11-4 Please call for questions or purchases Cel 207-322-4851 Shop 207-236-4122 Fax 207-236-4377 email: lucysdollhouse49@roadrunner.com
12” tall Peg wooden doll - $1200.
11-1/2” bisque shoulder head lady - $550.
Sweet 5-1/2” paper mache doll - $295.
9-1/2” rosewood armoire $295.
9-1/2” tall Steiff teddy $225.
Drop front Biedermeier chest 5-/1-4” w x 8” tall - $395.
4 pieces German Blue Onion porcelan utensils - (rolling pin 5”) $195.
Antique German pained horse and wagon horse 8” long - 22” long with wagon. $495.
1
The Mystery of Mary McEwen by Jenny Jones and Lois Cohorst
I
t happened in about 1915 that an old Victorian house stood quite alone and forlorn with blinds closed day in and day out with no sign of life. However, someone did live there, and word was that it was a woman called Mary McEwen. Mary lived there alone, spending her time in an upstairs room of her old Victorian home after her husband had passed away in 1943. But no one knew her or anything about her, nor would anyone have known the woman had they met her on the street, because they never
saw her. Unbeknownst to anyone, she was an artist who made folk dolls. In 1980 Jenny Jones, who owned several of the dolls, wrote an article about Mary after she saw a McEwen doll mistakenly advertised as a French doll. She researched the cemetery where Mary was buried and received oral history from Mary’s neighbor and probably her only friend, Lucille Stingel. After Mary’s death, her dolls were sold to Seattle doll collectors. Now, more of these dolls have surfaced, and there is more information about them. ANTIQUE DOLL COLLECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2012
29
This is the tallest house in my collection, measuring over 40” high and encompassing three full floors inside. I have owned smaller, less elaborate English box-back houses but always yearned for a really big one with a staircase for better realism and this one fits that bill admirably. The classical façade retains its original painted brickwork, but the stonework areas had been painted over with a dazzling white glossy paint that was carefully removed with a variety of techniques. The door had been repainted yellow and when stripped, revealed the original Paris green paintwork. I replaced the missing door knocker with one I bought in England. How much warmer and welcoming the house looks with its missing windows replaced and decorated with antique lace curtains!
Jane’s House Gets by Susan Grimshaw
I
first saw this large English box-back house in the catalogue for a Christie’s South Kensington auction in May of 2005 when the estimate was given at $1600 -1900. Perhaps it did not meet a reserve because it reappeared in October with a lower estimate of $1100 - 1500 and at that time, I emailed the sale’s specialist to express an interest in the house. Its imposing facade reminded me of a similar, even larger house I had admired when I catalogued the dollhouses in Carolyn Sunstein’s first auction. Daniel Agnew was kind enough to send me photos of the interior and when I saw them, it was clear that the house had been subjected to some pretty unappealing redecoration within the past 20 years or so. Thick white enamel paint had been carelessly applied over the exterior stonework, the center staircase and ceilings, and one room had lost its fireplace and chimney breast. Wrapping paper had been pasted over the original paper and vinyl adhesive paper was stuck to the floors in the uppermost rooms. And of course, all the window glass was gone, as were all the interior doors save the small closet door under the staircase. 40
ANTIQUE DOLL COLLECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2012
This close-up of the top right hand-corner of the façade shows where a previous owner scribed her name. The masonry lines are transfer-painted over the brick paint in a Flemish bond pattern. I never even noticed her name until I worked on removing the over-paint in this area.
If not for the dust problem, I’d love to keep the house open like this all the time. With each room measuring a foot or more in height, the overall size of the house can seem somewhat imposing, but I believe that the added moldings help bring a warm and comfortable atmosphere to the interior. All the wallpapers are original except for the nursery and hallways, and the bright blue paint in the kitchen is also original. The chandeliers hang from ormolu ceiling roses I re-purposed from a large and heavy box of old ormolu furniture hardware I bought at an auction some years ago. They are actually drawer pull mounts!
a Second Chance Clearly, it required a comprehensive restoration job and there was no guarantee that the original papers remained intact under the modern papers. Given that uncertainty, I felt the estimate was still too high for a house needing so much work, so I decided I would not bid, but the house stayed on my mind and I called Daniel the following week to ask if it had been sold. I was informed that it had not and Christie’s was preparing to return the house to the consignor, but Daniel said they would pass on an offer if I was still interested. I contacted a shipping company in Bristol that had been recommended to me by another collector and procured a firm quote for collecting, packing, shipping and delivering the house to New Jersey. After explaining to Daniel that it was going to cost me almost $1000 to ship such a large house to New Jersey, I faxed a letter with a pitifully low offer of only a few hundred pounds to Christie’s and was pleasantly surprised when it was quickly accepted. The shipping company specialized in handling antiques and made what could have been a daunting process relatively painless. The house arrived about two months after the auction and was delivered in a sturdy crate with plenty of padding – I was very pleased. And when I tallied up my costs, I was satisfied knowing that I would have been happy to pay the
same amount or more for the house had it been offered for sale on this side of the Atlantic. When I acquire a dolls’ house in this condition, I usually let it sit for a while as I study it and consider how extensive the appropriate repairs, restorations or improvements should be. It can be a number of years before a project is completed. Sometimes I have to wait to find appropriate old wallpapers or hardware while I dive right into removing previous “improvements”. It can take a year or more to scrape down the exterior of a house or to carefully peel off later wallpapers. In this case, the newer papers came off very easily to expose faded but original full-sized wallpapers that appear to date to the latter half of the 19th century, but dealing with the over-painted surfaces was a different matter. The plain white ceilings had been painted over chipped and loose distemper, so I left them as I found them, but the later paint had been carelessly smeared along the top edges of the walls so I was faced with a choice of trying to hand-paint the papers’ designs over the paint, or disguise this sloppiness with cornices. Commercial houses like this one normally did not have a molded cornice, but might have had a border paper. Had this been a museum-quality house, I would have tried ANTIQUE DOLL COLLECTOR
SEPTEMBER 2012
41