Welcome to My Red Cape. Long ago in another time my husband Jack and I lived in a little old red house. It was the stuff of dreams to us for the few years that we were there. I live there still a number of hours every day in imagination, with old dolls and paintings and fabrics and feather trees. I draw inspiration and happiness from the memories of that space in time and share some of it here with friends who remember how to step with Alice through the looking glass and take delight in whimsies and antiquities. ~Edyth O’Neill

Thursday, May 22, 2014

A Motschmann doll in an unusual size

Why do I like this Motschmann doll head? How does one explain what piques a collector's interest?  Her bright expression and life like glass eyes are part of it.  She is a fairly rare find. Many of the papier mache dolls with snoods  were wax over papier mache, and often blond.  This one shows no residue of wax and instead the residue of an early finish. Her painted hair shows desirable brush marks at the sides of her face.  See how these early dolls glow against the fabrics in this grand old log cabin quilt. Click on any photo to enlarge it.





Although  she is a very worn example I am enjoying this head from a doll of about civil war age.  She has lost what was obviously a Motschmann style body. To display her I will want a body for her and a dress of old calico if possible.  While watching for the right body or parts of one, I will make a cloth body of the right height, using the blond waxed Motschmann example pictured  to aid in getting the right proportions for this one. The three dolls in the front of this picture are not as early as the three Voit dolls standing behind them. I do not know her maker, perhaps Muller, only a guess.  I date her right at 1860, 65.  e

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