Modern Porcelain Dolls from Asia and Waldas; 10 Good Things

 

 

Can

you spot some modern porcelains in this photo of some

museum dolls that I assembled for this post?

Certainly, I don’t want to give the wrong idea with this post.  My specialty areas are antique doll, emphasis French bisque and metal, international dolls, emphasis African, Greek, Spanish, with many amazing old and vintage examples in between.  I could fill my 5000 sq. foot building with nothing but antiques and vintage dolls.  Yet, if dolls are humanities historians, then we need to study all dolls, and at the very least to comment on them.  Among the most ignored and vilified dolls today are the modern porcelain dolls made in Asia over the last 40 years.

 

Two examples with fancy dresses.

They were all the rage from about 1970 to 2005.  Some were very expensive, and others appeared in Dollar stores, even supermarkets like Aldi.   K-Mart featured very large, beautiful examples, Hallmark made a few, including its tiny Diana ornament.  High End department stores carried them in their gift sections, and some furniture stores featured dolls of the month. Geppetto made lovely examples and clothes in all price ranges.  They usually sold at mall kiosks during the holiday season.  Their name, of course, alludes to Pinocchio.

 

A rough looking little doll in the brown dress made her debut in magazine ads in around 1979.  She was dubbed Walda and appeared in variations including clown and Pierrot outfits, different dresses, with sleep eyes (Toys R Us), etc.

 

More expressive example.

Two typical modern porcelain dolls of the late 90s.

Then, like Hummels, Precious Moments, Beanie Babies, Lladro, and other collectibles, they fell out of favor, were ridiculed, and became yard sale items. Entire collections, in the box, ended up at thrift stores.  Others were dubbed “creepy” and were turned into monster dolls or showed up as haunted house props.   One woman in San Clemente had a terrible epiphany when she left her daughter’s dolls on neighbor’s porches for their daughters.    Inside Edition actually contacted me about it, and I wrote an article for Doll Collecting at About.com.  The police “took the dolls” into custody because they were “creepy”, and some feared a pedophile in their midst.  Really?   I hope the officers remembered to read the dolls their rights. LOL!

 

These dolls, varied, and made by m companies, are usually mass produced, but hand finished.  Most come from China, or other parts of Asia.  Known companies include Gold Key, Brass Key, Catherine Collection Cathay House, Paradise Galleries, Duck House, Heritage Mint, William Tung, Marian Yu Designs, and more.  A few were also made in vinyl made to look like porcelain.

 

They are not like the Shackman reproduction dolls made in Japan during the mid 20^th century, nor are they, for the most part, antique reproductions.  So, Mark Farmer, Emma Clear, Polly Mann, and the like are not in the running, though another post will address these reproductions, many now over 70 years old and vintage.

 

Doll on left is a late French Bisque, "cold" painted.  On the right

is a modern porcelain with a character face, probably Duck House.

Here are some good reasons for collecting these dolls.  Remember a few years ago Barbie clones like Maddie Mod were ignored, too.  Now, people specialize in them and books have been written about them.   Just a few years ago, sixties vinyl dolls and other modern dolls were ignored by serious collectors, really by any collectors. They had a surge in popularity and price after Pat Smith wrote her Modern Collectors dolls, took a dive when online sales burgeoned, but still have a strong following now.  Now is the time to buy modern porcelain dolls.  They deserve to be curated, and are part of doll history.

 

Reasons to appreciate and collect modern porcelain dolls from Asia and elsewhere:

 

1. Their costumes are often beautiful
2. Waldas have their own following, and their own Facebook page and YouTube videos
3. They are good starter dolls for young collectors
4. Some use antique doll molds, like the Marque or Bru Juneau
5. They can start a good discussion about history of porcelain dolls and antique dolls made of porcelain
6. They are good dolls for large scale doll houses
7. They are good models for doll seamstresses; fun to create their wardrobe
8. They are mostly still inexpensive
9. They are a good doll club favor
10. They have some provenance as movie props or TV Props; Ellen Foster, Interview with the Vampire, Search for Tomorrow, Days of our Lives,  The Doll on Prime Video, Little House, Richard Chamberlain series, etc.
11. Look nice displayed in a case when clothes are washed and dolls are clean
12. I’ve seen then in museums all over the world, several in Canada during early 1990
13. They come in all sizes
14. Some artists dabbled in them, e.g., Louis Nichole, Victoria Ashlea, Seymour Mann, Marian Yu Designs
15.  They teach new collectors how to care for fragile dolls.

16. Small examples make great Christmas ornaments.

17. They are part of doll history and are no longer made.  They deserve to be saved.

Antique Dressel Character from our collection, here for

comparison

Happy Halloween!

 

 

Frida's Dolls and The Day of the Dead

 

This close to El Dia de Muertos, which Frida loved, I include a post in her honor, dedicated to our friend, Susan Sirkis, who once asked me to do a FB post on her.

 

Frida inspired Day of the Dead Doll with Comp and Bisque friends.

Many art lovers are aware of Frida Kahlo’s startling, surrealist art, often painted on a much smaller scale than the larger than life murals of her husband, Diego Rivera. Frida has been celebrated in documentaries and in the film Frida, based on Hayden Herrera’s biography of the artist. There is even a religion based on her and her art called Kahloism.  Both she and Rivera have been discussed for their turbulent marriage, their art, and their  politics, but not many realized that both were avid collectors.  Frida was very fond of dolls and toys.  Diego collected folk art and pre-Columbian figures. 

 

The two lived in adjoining houses, his was La Casa Rosada, or the pink house, while hers was La Casa Azul, or the blue house.   In fact, on a trip to Paris, Frida bought to dolls that needed repairs at the Paris flea market.  As soon as she could, she took them to a doll hospital. Frida preferred dolls that were a little broken but could be fixed.  As a survivor of Polio and a crippling bus accident that left her with a limp and numerous health issues, Frida Kahlo tended to identified with her broken dolls. 

 

Dolls and folk art figured in her paintings as well, especially her “Four Inhabitants of Mexico.”  In this painting, she uses Day of the Dead figures and Calaveras.  There is also “Me and My Doll,” 1937 http://www.fridakahlo.org/me-and-my-doll.jsp.  The last painting reminds me of doll paintings that Picasso did, especially of his daughter, Paloma. Note that a doll museum he visited in around 1915 influenced Picasso’s painting Demoiselles de Avignon.

 

 

It is said Frida kept pets and collected dolls because she could not have children.  Yet, she was fond of toys and collecting them even before the horrific 1925 accident that severely affected her health.  In fact, she was on the bus that was hit because she had gone back to retrieve a favorite toy from another bus.  She had forgotten the toy on the earlier bus.

 

Frida’s costumes  and apparel and doll costumes for Mexican dolls are very similar.  Kahlo wore traditional outfits from various regions in Mexico as a way of furthering and displaying her culture.  She also liked the long skirts, and slacks she wore, because they covered the fact that one of her legs was affected by her injuries nad by Polio.

 

Frida has become a Muse, and is often portrayed as a doll or work of art. Dolls that represent Frida are paper dolls, cloth, artist sculpts, wax, and vinyl.  The recent Mattel doll sparked some controversy from a few involved in the film Frida, loosely based on a biography by Hayden Herrera.

 

Folk Art important to both; Diego got in trouble in USSR for espousing it.  Yet, neither stopped using their own folk and cultural influences as themes in their art.  While Frida collected dolls, Diego was interested in pre-Columbian figures.

Guest Blogger; Dr. David Levy

 Here is our October guest blog from renowned astronomer, Dr. David Levy.

Skyward for October 2020

 

David H. Levy

 

The long summer of 2020

 

          When Earth crossed the summer solstice on June 21, 2020, we were all mired in the midst of the most serious pandemic in more than a century.    Summer is the most important season for me for one reason:  it was many years ago, during the Summer of 1960, that I fell in love with the night sky.  This summer just concluded had a start filled with disappointment.

          On June 21, 1960, I was riding my bicycle to school when its front wheel struck a curb and broke my arm.  My cousin, Roy Kaufman, gave me a book about the planets as a get-well present.  I read and reread that book all summer, and by September I was enjoying my first look through a telescope, at the planet Jupiter.  The view of the planet with its bands of color, combined with its four big moons, was one I have never forgotten.  To this day Jupiter remains my favorite planet.  As I never tire of looking at this world, I was able to view Jupiter this summer also. 

          The summer of 2020 began with a huge handicap, but something appeared in the sky that quickly altered my perception.  That something was Comet Neowise.  Not since Comet McNaught in 2007 has such a bright comet graced our sky.  I first saw Neowise on the morning of July 5.  The full Moon was setting in the west, and the sky was brightening rapidly in the east.  With a pair of good binoculars I found Capella, then carefully moved them toward the eastern horizon.  Suddenly, the beautiful comet made its appearance with a bright glowing head and a brilliant tail.    As the comet faded slightly over the next few days its tail grew longer.

          Comet Neowise might have been a highlight of this Summer season, but there were other highpoints.  Over the course of the summer I enjoyed sixteen “AN” or all night observing sessions,  nights under the sky that went on from dusk to dawn.  Most of these were interrupted by lengthy periods of rest during which I would watch some television, but the final one was not.  Session 21755AN2 began when my friend David Rossetter and I observed for several hours at the dark site run by the Tucson Amateur Astronomers Association.  One back home, I enjoyed more hours searching for comets until dawn spelled an end. 

Searching for comets is something I have enjoyed for many years.  It is an activity of which I never tire, even though I have not found a new comet since October 2006.  After all, the search is what is so important to me.    It is refreshing, it is fun, and it recharges my soul and my spirit.

 

Jarnac Observatory, December 25th