The French Dolls Page

About Antique French Dolls

About 1850, French craftsmen dollmakers started a trend that all others would follow: the Bebe. Until that time, most dolls were made in the image of adults. But leading French doll makers like Jumeau, Steiner, and Bru revolutionized the business with their creation of high quality porcelain infant dolls.

About Antique and Collectible Dolls

People have been making and collecting dolls since the beginning of time. There are many varieties of antique and collectible dolls, ranging from early German, French, bisque, and cloth dolls, to early 20th century Kewpie, Shirley Temple, and Ideal dolls, to later 20th century dolls like Ginny, and of course, Barbie.

More About Dolls

Early dolls. The earliest wood and pottery dolls date back thousands of years, having been found in Egyptian tombs as well as the graves of ancient Greeks and Romans. Early dolls were also made of bone, leather, rags, clay, corn husks, and any other readily available materials.

Queen Anne period dolls. Dolls from this period (early 1700s) were typically carved of wood, with pegged on, jointed arms and legs, high foreheads, human hair and painted features. At about the same time, cruder clothespin-shaped ‘peg dolls’ were being produced in Holland.

Wax head dolls. While most early dolls’ bodies were made from wood, makers experimented with different materials for the head because wood was hard to carve in detail. Dolls with wax heads appeared in the 1700s, in England, France and Germany, and remained popular for about 100 years.

Porcelain and bisque head dolls. Molded porcelain was better than wax because it could be glazed and painted, and by the 1800s leading dollmakers in France and Germany had adopted the medium. Dolls with unglazed porcelain heads (also known as bisque) became popular in France, and were typically highly detailed, with natural hair and lifelike features and clothing.

Composition and paper mache dolls. Composition, or a mixture of sawdust and other similar ingredients, water, and adhesive, also became popular around this time. Although not as high quality as porcelain, composition dolls could be made to appear lifelike, and were durable. Dolls made of paper mache, or layers of paper mixed with glue and water, also took hold in the U.S. in the mid 1800s.