The heading should really say: New doll’s dolls.
There have been dolls for children throughout history. Some which I have reproduced in miniature miniature for the show have already been exhibited in the Spring. The oldest are the ancient Greek dolls’ dolls.
New on the sofa this show will be some you have already seen here, who are limited to just four.
If you were a little girl with a skipping rope in the 1930s, your skipping chant could have gone: Shirley Oneple, Shirley Twople, Shirley Threeple all the way up to the triumphant: Shirley Temple!
Shirley Temple was the most wonderful child film star in the 1930s. She was copied in fashions and of course, dolls. You’ve already seen my version
When I first showed you I wasn’t sure if there were going to be more this size. I had kept one to take a mould from. This mould broke when I was pouring it but I think I have a doll that can be shrunken again to make a really small doll, so these will be the only ones at this size.
If you had been a child in the seventeenth century, you would probably be dancing in a circle. The song would end: All fall down! which you would do. It is Ring a Ring a rosies. The Black Death which is so cheerfully referenced in this rhyme was romping through the capital at the time. It was only halted by the Great Fire of London. If you had been a child at the time and had a boy doll he would have looked like this:
These three are ready to go on the sofa, they are just under two and a half inches, so you could use them as residents in a twenty-fourth scale house if you were making a house in seventeenth century style.
I did actually do a 12th scale seventeenth century house as my first kit, it was a Greenleaf. I got overly picky about it and eventually ground to a halt because I couldn’t research all the correct flowers in the garden. I still have the house on a shelf, full of junk and desperate for a make-over. I lived in the seventeenth century in my head for years. It was a seminal time for Britain. It was the start of Parliament watching the monarch and the monarch watching parliament and neither of them being able to do anything drastic to the population without the agreement of the other. It was also the start of the three piece suit. As you can see the dolls are wearing breeches, a shirt and a jacket, which gradually evolved into the formal clothing for men still worn today across much of the northern hemisphere, North America and Australia and New Zealand. Ribbons were popular in the seventeenth century, in your hat and around your neck, as still worn by judges in court. These evolved into the tie, still being worn formally, although I think this is now on its way out.
I have enjoyed these dolls but have also shrunken some, which I may shrink further.
This is just a glimpse of the latest. Stay tuned.
Details of the show at which you can buy doll’s dolls from history to give to the dolls in your dolls’ house are here and it’s less than a fortnight away.
Erk!
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