roughdiamonddolls

[roughdiamonddolls]

(from my doll blog)

how to deal with people who are assholes about your doll collection

Acquire automaton or mechanical doll

Put it near the asshole, having previously wound it or in some other way activated the mechanism

Don’t tell them it’s supposed to move

Have fun

[roughdiamonddolls]

how to deal with people who are assholes about your doll collection

Acquire automaton or mechanical doll

Put it near the asshole, having previously wound it or in some other way activated the mechanism

Don’t tell them it's supposed to move

Have fun

[roughdiamonddolls]

Creeping meant crawling back then (when describing babies). Sorry to burst the ~creepy doll~ bubble. The scariest part of these is the potential to trip over the damn thing.

[roughdiamonddolls]

Reposting and misattribution

So I recently noticed a photo of Jeanette floating around online, mislabeled as a “bisque and wooden doll by DeHors, late 1860s.” Which could really play havoc with people’s research, so I’d like to set the record straight.

This:

is one of my French fashion dolls, nicknamed Jeanette. She has been attributed to Jumeau, not DeHors, and the early 1870s, not the late 1860s. She has a method of neck articulation patented by DeHors in 1867, which may be where the confusion came from, but her face is very typical of Jumeau’s fashion ladies. And to cap it all off, her body is of kid leather, not wood.

(I only wish I had any chance of affording- or someone buying me -a wood-bodied French fashion doll.)

This picture was on a post with clear information, and I’m really upset that someone’s been spreading it under the wrong maker name. And apparently without sourcing, since anyone who actually went to this blog could immediately see that the reposter was wrong about pretty much everything.

If you see anything else like this out there, please let me know.

[roughdiamonddolls]

some women of the golden age of French dolls, 1850-1900 (focusing on information that can be hard to find)

Adelaide Calixte Huret (dates unknown)- Daughter of a manufacturer of wrought-iron furniture. First patented and sold her early “mode enfantine” (child fashion) dolls in 1850. Believed to be the parent of the French fashion doll.

Marie Antoinette Leontine Rohmer (??-1896)- Started out helping her mother, Catherine, in a successful Parisian child’s clothing shop (together with her sister Fanny). First began selling dolls in 1855.

Madame Lavallee-Peronne (first name unknown; dates unknown)- Opened her doll shop, A La Poupee de Nuremberg, in 1864. Also started and edited two magazines, La Poupee Modele (The Doll-Model) and Le Journal des Demoiselles (The Journal of Young Ladies).

Apolline-Marinette Comyn Bru (1837-???)- Married famed dollmaker Leon Casimir Bru in 1866. Her name is on the patents for several mechanisms her husband used in his dolls, suggesting that she in fact invented them. Her daughter, Lucie Bru Cousturier, was a writer, artist, and advocate for racial equality.

Ernestine-Stephanie Ducroix Jumeau (dates unknown)- Married doll heir Emile Jumeau in 1874; when he inherited the business upon the unexpected death of his older brother, she designed all the costumes for his famed Bebe Jumeau dolls, oversaw their construction, and made a number of them herself. Once said of the seamstresses she directed, “These women are saints.”

[roughdiamonddolls]

famous dollmaker Leon Casimir Bru’s daughter, Lucie Bru Cousturier, was a champion of racial equality in turn-of-the-century France

I just learned that and it’s

the most amazing thing?

on par with learning that her mother, Apolline-Marinette Comyn Bru (b. 1837 in Tours; married 1866), actually invented some of the mechanisms used in Bru dolls

and I feel like no devotees of Lucie Cousturier’s art and writing would ever think to link her to Bru dolls, nor any doll collectors think to look into the work of Bru’s daughter

this is so interesting

[roughdiamonddolls]

You think they’re hideous. I vastly prefer them to most modern dolls. Your opinion is not objective fact.

A phobia is an irrational fear. Pediophobes (people who fear dolls) don’t have any particular reason to fear dolls, and I find most that I know are more unsettled by modern or vintage play dolls than the really high-quality antiques. No one type of doll is the “reason” fear of dolls exists. That being said, I suspect the media telling people they’re supposed to be afraid of dolls is a contributing factor.

This edit makes no sense to me. Out of all the antique dolls out there that do have wonky faces or creepy expressions, this person finds a fairly unassuming china doll the creepiest?

[roughdiamonddolls]

I could, but since I have the original arms, they're stable enough, and the look of it doesn't bother me, I'd rather just leave it alone. Besides, color-matching the age discoloration of her body would be a nightmare

I will, however, be getting her a wig and pate and making some new clothes. So look out for that!

welcome home Ophelie, the newest of our family!

she’s a Francois Gaultier fashion lady, probably from the 1880s if her princess petticoat is original (the arm holes look like a style from that era to me, and the combination chemise-petticoat first became a thing around 1877). she has a dress; I just feel like it’s massively tacky. it may be made of antique materials, but it’s this odd mustard yellow with pink trim

her body has some serious damage to the hands and the arms; the fingers are splitting along the seams and, in an attempt to tourniquet off the leaking sawdust, someone tied thread tightly around her wrists. so now her hands are all floppy on loose wrists devoid of stuffing. because someone couldn’t bother to just stabilize the splits

she also has a lot of cracks on her head, possibly from being dropped at some point, but they’ve been repaired

I couldn’t resist that sweet face, so here she is! ready for new hair and clothes and a new life

[roughdiamonddolls]

welcome home Ophelie, the newest of our family!

she’s a Francois Gaultier fashion lady, probably from the 1880s if her princess petticoat is original (the arm holes look like a style from that era to me, and the combination chemise-petticoat first became a thing around 1877). she has a dress; I just feel like it’s massively tacky. it may be made of antique materials, but it’s this odd mustard yellow with pink trim

her body has some serious damage to the hands and the arms; the fingers are splitting along the seams and, in an attempt to tourniquet off the leaking sawdust, someone tied thread tightly around her wrists. so now her hands are all floppy on loose wrists devoid of stuffing. because someone couldn’t bother to just stabilize the splits

she also has a lot of cracks on her head, possibly from being dropped at some point, but they’ve been repaired

I couldn’t resist that sweet face, so here she is! ready for new hair and clothes and a new life

[roughdiamonddolls]

I’m not saying I bought another doll but

if I had

her name would be Ophélie and she would be a very battered F.G. fashion lady

this doll I totally didn’t buy on eBay in the first auction I’ve ever won

[roughdiamonddolls]

so I share a lot of antique doll pictures but I just found this one and thought it was very important

French fashion dolls of 1850-1890 are widely lauded as some of history’s most beautiful, and most of them were white. but on rare occasions one comes across black ones and they’re just as breathtaking. this gorgeous lady seems to be dressed in some sort of vaguely Caribbean-inspired wedding costume (and unfortunately, it looks like her kid leather body is literally white, but the hands can be interpreted as white bridal gloves with the costume on)

she’s so lovely and delicate and, I think, a powerful reminder that western history isn’t as wholly white as some people like to believe

[roughdiamonddolls]

And another intro

(Secondhand modern dolls count too, right?)

I swore blind when I bought my first Asian ball-jointed doll that I’d never have another. Well:

This is Zara, a fourthhand Soom Rosette Fir. And she made me eat my words.

 I wanted to wait to finish her underwear and get her wig before posting pictures, and she’s turned out more beautiful than I could have hoped.

(wig is Monique; combinations made by me)

[roughdiamonddolls]

Doll Update!

So I realize I haven’t done a proper full-body shot of Lucie in her new chemise and drawers, with her homemade wig, on her stand:

(big hair is back, remember?)

And we have a new sister in need of TLC to welcome to the family, too:

Meet Renata! She’s a Barrois straight-necked head with pretty intense but expert restoration. She came to me in a birthday box from some very generous friends and now sits wistfully awaiting the right body. Lucie’s came to me in under 6 months- can she hope for such luck? We’ll see...

[roughdiamonddolls]

it is, but there’s a big difference between “I don’t like dolls at parties because I hate dolls” and “I don’t like dolls at parties because women should be having babies instead of hobbies.” it seems like he either came down on the latter side or was trying to give his personal preferences more weight by presenting them as psychoanalysis

In the Boudoir: dolls for grown-ass women

think adults collecting dolls is a recent fad? think again. quite apart from the mid-20th century antique doll shows, with their now-ubiquitous blue ribbons for the grandest attic finds, women have been collecting dolls specifically made for them at least since the 17th century

fashionable Georgian ladies had to have ways to learn the latest fashions from France, the seat of style and taste. but human-sized samples of gowns and accessories were costly to make and difficult to transport. the solution came with a name: Pandora

two Pandoras, actually. for the woman of means, a petite Pandora for everyday clothes and a grand Pandora for formalwear were necessities. with inset glass eyes and real rooted hair (glued to a slit in the head), the wooden dolls weren’t just mannequins, they were art in their own right. gradually the custom of purchasing miniature fashion samples for one’s Pandoras and showing them to the seamstress died out, but Pandoras remained a popular display item for years afterwards

fast forward to the 1920s and you have the boudoir dolls. they were highly stylized, slender dolls with cloth-stuffed bodies and masklike painted faces- and they did not depict children. with thin, arched brows and deep red cupid’s bow lips, these dolls were flappers through and through. they were a fad and a decorative object, but also much more. movie stars were photographed with their boudoir dolls. some women brought them to parties. this trend caused some consternation among the male powers-that-were, who believed caring for dolls cooled women’s desire to care for children. one professor Max Schlapp wrote, “these exaggerated dolls are the temporary whim of abnormal women. I use the word advisedly, because women who are normal have children and have no time to waste on baubles.”

Mr. Schlapp was clearly allergic to fun

so the next time you see someone mocking a collector of ball-jointed dolls or art dolls, remember: “not intended for children” has a long, illustrious history. and grown-ass adults can do what we want

[roughdiamonddolls]

In the Boudoir: dolls for grown-ass women

think adults collecting dolls is a recent fad? think again. quite apart from the mid-20th century antique doll shows, with their now-ubiquitous blue ribbons for the grandest attic finds, women have been collecting dolls specifically made for them at least since the 17th century

fashionable Georgian ladies had to have ways to learn the latest fashions from France, the seat of style and taste. but human-sized samples of gowns and accessories were costly to make and difficult to transport. the solution came with a name: Pandora

two Pandoras, actually. for the woman of means, a petite Pandora for everyday clothes and a grand Pandora for formalwear were necessities. with inset glass eyes and real rooted hair (glued to a slit in the head), the wooden dolls weren’t just mannequins, they were art in their own right. gradually the custom of purchasing miniature fashion samples for one’s Pandoras and showing them to the seamstress died out, but Pandoras remained a popular display item for years afterwards

fast forward to the 1920s and you have the boudoir dolls. they were highly stylized, slender dolls with cloth-stuffed bodies and masklike painted faces- and they did not depict children. with thin, arched brows and deep red cupid’s bow lips, these dolls were flappers through and through. they were a fad and a decorative object, but also much more. movie stars were photographed with their boudoir dolls. some women brought them to parties. this trend caused some consternation among the male powers-that-were, who believed caring for dolls cooled women’s desire to care for children. one professor Max Schlapp wrote, “these exaggerated dolls are the temporary whim of abnormal women. I use the word advisedly, because women who are normal have children and have no time to waste on baubles.”

Mr. Schlapp was clearly allergic to fun

so the next time you see someone mocking a collector of ball-jointed dolls or art dolls, remember: “not intended for children” has a long, illustrious history. and grown-ass adults can do what we want

[roughdiamonddolls]

She is naked no more! 

Lucie now has that most basic unit of Victorian lady’s clothing: a chemise. I was a bit disappointed with the design- I used a pattern from a Suasn Sirkis wish booklet (1870-75) and even without the insertion lace which I left off because I’m out of miniature-scale lace right now, it looks more like a 1970s babydoll nightgown than any 1870s chemise I’ve ever seen

also. warn a girl that your patterns don’t include seam allowances, okay? please?

because it’s so simple, I embroidered a tiny L on the front for a bit of ornamentation. this is actually the best embroidery I’ve ever done, which tells you something about the dismal state of my embroidery skills

anyway. stay tuned for the endless thrill of...drawers! [thunder, lightning, dramatic music]

[roughdiamonddolls]

More progress shots! Lucie now has eyes and is stitched onto her body. Now if the wefts for her wig could just get through Customs Hell we’d be in business. As it is, hurry up and wait mode is activated and I’m working on her underwear in the meantime. I actually have patterns for 11-13″ poupees, so I don’t have to just drape and pray for a change.