Catalog: Dolls: Antique Dolls (258)

This doll looks right. She is hand sewn, rag stuffed with some cotton stuffing, very big folky mitten hands and the best brown and red calico dress. She had lots of patina, (the very nice word for accumulation of dirt and soil over the years). She has on a flannel petticoat under her dress and a pair of bloomers on inside out. Why they are like that I don't know but they look okay like that. Her shoulders are jointed but her legs are not but she sits from years of sitting...

This doll doesn't need any detective work to know that she is old and completely original. I think she has two other faces under this one but I would never take the risk of hating the other two faces and not being able to get this face back on. I often don't like to take socks off a doll. When you know by the looks that the socks have been on forever they never look the same when you take them off and put them back on. Anyway, she is 18" tall, sits nicely, is firmly packed with cotton...

The wooden doll fragment has some original paint. She is all one piece of wood even her tiny nose. She has a touch of original pink on both cheeks. She has some black paint on part of the back of her head that was her hair. She feels lovely to the touch. She is a real treasure. She is not quite 8" tall and is circa 1790-1820.

This is a very interesting doll. Her body and head are one piece of solid wood, with a hole straight through the shoulder from side to side with arms pushed in an anchored on either side. The legs, I am not sure how they are attached and the pants over her legs are sewn on and have been for a long time, see stains from the wood on the white tightly woven pants, they feel very secure. She has on a period dress that I think I put on her a long time ago with the apron over it...

This antique wooden doll is hand carved and still has some original paint. The face is nicely carved, the body is painted a dark green and the legs and face have a having a dark patina. The head has black painted hair. He has a big hole in his middle that I think was a hole for a jigger pole. He/she I think was a doll first and then a jigger but I can't say for sure. The back of his head has lots of wear so that didn't happen while he was a jigger...

I was very surprised to find a Poppet doll dressed as a Native American. I looked up what tribes were in Kentucky and it turns out there were three or four. Shawnee, Cherokee, Chippewa and Chickasaw. So it is not surprising even in the first quarter of 1900 to have an Indigenous Poppet doll. She has on a wool skirt and a fine multicolored top. She has wooden rounded at the end arms and wooden legs covered with a gray wool leggings that have embroidery up the sides and leather shoes...