Porcelain Dolls Review

Since time immemorial girls have played with dolls.
Dolls have been found in almost all covilizations worldwide - from Egypt to Japan and from Russia to the Aztec cities of Guatemala ..

Archaeologists have proved that dolls have been around for thousands of years .
In the very early days girls and their parents made dolls from wood,cloth or stone and clay.

Sme medieval and later dolls were made with wax heads and limbs.

Although these were adequate until the 18th century, girls wanted dolls that really loked like real people and in due course doll makers
obliged them by making realistic dolls with porcelain heads.

 

These could be available with dresses similar to adult fashionable dresses
 and an industry was  born.

 

Porcelain dolls have beome a favourite among collectors. These were made with realistic features and wigs and began to truly look like people instead of the earlier vague shapes.

 

Porcelain is actually clay - but a very much refined version where the mixture of clay and water is filtered to produce a smoother material.
The Porcelain clay when made into the correct consistency is poured into a Mold which has been carved by a craftsman and the mold is reusable.

The clay fills the head mould which is suported to prevent the clay running out  and the mold is baked in a special oven at a very high temperature.
In the later development of porcelain for dolls, hands,feet and even bodies were produced in a similar way.
After the Porcelain head is cooled down, it is haded to an Artist who paints the features.

At this point we will have an UNGLAZED head and this is called BISQUE.These are still fairly fragile but have a superb finish with crisp features.

Doll makers were often judged by the quality of a dolls painted features. The more expensive dolls had very lifelike features..
As  the heads were mainly used for play by girls, a method of strengthening them was necessary

 

Some Porcelain heads were glazed  with a thin solution painted over the painted features and the head is baked again.

 

This when cool produces a fine glossy or semi-gloss finish and the dollmaker usually passes the finished head to outworkers who add a wig,body,limbs and clothes.

The Photo here is of an early American Dollmaking factory with teams of ladies assembling dolls.

Porcelain dolls from the 18th and early 19th century  are considered as antiques and this timeframe is known as the Golden Age of Dollmaking and included such makers as BRU,JUMEAU and KESTNER  three makers that you are likely to come across.

 

The Molds that were used to produce these lovely dolls are still in use today and these are used to make reproduction dolls (REPRO)
and are dressed by modern seamstresses in copies of 19th century dolls clothes.

 

 

There may be a degree of confusion for beginning doll collectors as it was a standard practice for even the more important dollmakers to buy in bisque heads ready made from other dollmakers or from specialist bisque head makers.

 

In fact some dollmakers only made doll heads and parts and employed speciaist artists and sold the doll heads worldwide.

It is possible to have French Dolls with German Heads as in the region of Thuringia in Germany there was a thriving industry in all
areas of dollmaking. Several dollmakers were pretty much just a family concern with the whole family working on piecework for larger companies.

There are even now specialist doll shops in Germany and its worth a trip to learn and go round a modern doll making factory.