#1820's

Evening dress ca. 1829

• Dress.

Date: origen 1820's

28" (71 cm.) All-carved wood doll with dramatically-shaped head which features a heart-shaped face and very full rounded back of head, elongated throat, distinctive nose, fully-carved pixie-like ears, heavy modeled eyelids, blue downcast eyes, red eyeliner with delicately painted upper lashes, tinted brows, closed mouth, painted hair with exuberant tendrils of curls around the forehead, sculpted collar with painted ruffled details, slender torso with defined waist, dowel-jointing at shoulders, elbows, hips and knees, flat feet with painted brown slippers, original kid-over-wooden upper arms, hips and upper legs.

Condition: generally excellent, original finish throughout, some minor typical rubs on face.

Comments: Grodnertal, circa 1820, the doll is shown in Doll Collectors Manual, 1964, in an article by Ruth and E.C. Mathes, indicating that at the time the doll was in the collection of Lucille Grimes of Encinitas, California.

Value Points: outstanding example of luxury quality wooden doll from the Grodnertal, its rarity features include grand size, unusual kid-over-wood body parts, exuberant painting of hair, unusual shape of face, sculpted collar, and wearing early fine early costume.

Via Therialt's

Here is an example of one of the types of dolls from the 1820's: the Grodnertal doll, AKA peg wooden doll, Dutch doll, or (especially if made in the United States) pennywood doll. "Grodnertal" comes from the German "Grödner Gliederpuppen".

These kinds of dolls were usually sold undressed, and the children or families would make the clothes themselves.

I suspect this doll probably had some original accessories like a matching bonnet and maybe a shawl that got lost or destroyed over the years.

‘The Artist at Work’ (1820′s) by Mary Ellen Best (1809–1891).

Watercolour.

York Museums Trust (York Art Gallery).

The Death of Queen Elizabeth I