Dolls, Hats, and Edward VI

My good friends at a local Lutheran Church invited me once more to their wonderful All Daughters Banquet last night. As usual, it was terrific. The speaker had a fantastic colletion of hats and head coverings, including books, scarves, hair nets, fun hats, you name it. Each had its story, as any good collectible should, and she mentioned she also had dolls that wore some of the hats. Same as me. Vintage fashion and doll collections go very well together. I plan to display my vintage clothing and accessories in the brick/mortar museum. Often, the dolls and their constumes are the last vestiges of the fashion history of an era; they are the 3-D encyclopedias left to us, and fashion dolls were sent around as the silent envoys of couture to anyone who could afford them.

I plan to be on a local TV show next week; gulp! I am gathering historical dolls and memorabilia and found a photo of the wooden stump down, allegedly a once-loved toy of Edward VI, the prince in The Prince and the Pauper, and Henry VIII's son. It was part of the legendary Helen Moe Doll Musem, and I saw it Paso Robles, CA, where I also bought a dolls parasol and Jan Hagara figurine. She had a lead doll, too, that I was supposed to get to photograph; Ah, the best laid plans of mice and girls.

Hope all is well with everyone; God hel the People of the South and of Alabama. I spent several great summer trips down south, and many of our dolls came from southern antique stores and wonderful museum shops. Till later, Happy Dolling!

Baudelaire and "A Philosophy of Toys."

artículo
Baudelaire, Charles
A Philosophy of Toys


Brandon Lattu. Alll Toys , 2006

Many years ago I was taken by my mother to visit a certain Madame Panckoucke. (…) I remember very clearly that this lady was clad in velvet and fur. At the end of a short time, she said: ‘Here we have a little boy whom I would like to give something to – to remember me by.’ She took me by the hand and we passed through several rooms; then she opened the door of a chamber where an extraordinary and truly fairylike spectacle met my gaze. The walls were literally invisible, so covered were they with toys. The ceiling had vanished behind an efflorescence of toys which hung from it like marvellous stalactites. On the floor was hardly a narrow catwalk to place one’s feet upon. It was a whole world of toys of all kinds, from the most costly to the most trifling, from the simplest to the most complicated.



‘This,’ said she, ‘is the children’s treasury. I regularly set aside a small sum of money to add to it, and when a nice little boy comes to see me, I bring him here so that he can take away a souvenir of me. Make your choice.’ With admirable and luminous alacrity which is typical of children, in whose minds desire, deliberation and action make up, so to speak, but a single faculty – a fact which distinguishes them from degenerate man, with whom, in contrast, deliberation absorbs almost the whole of his time – I seized hold of the most beautiful, the most expensive, the most showy, the newest, the most unusual of the toys. My mother protested against my impertinence and obstinately refused to let me take it away with me. She wanted me to be content with an infinitely ordinary object. But I could not agree, and to make everything all right, resigned myself to a fair compromise.


Alice Anderson. Still Life, 2006

It has often struck me that it would be amusing to know all the ‘nice little boys’ who have now crossed a good part of life’s cruel desert and have for a long time been handling something other than toys, and yet whose carefree childhood once upon a time took away a souvenir from Madame Panckoucke’s treasury. This episode is responsible for my never being able to stop in front of a toyshop and run my eyes over the inextricable muddle of strange shapes and clashing colours of its contents without thinking of the velvet-and-fur-clad lady who appeared to me as the Toy Fairy. I have moreover retained a lasting affection and a reasoned admiration for that strange statuary art which, with its lustrous neatness, its blinding flashes of colour, its violence in gesture and decision of contour, represents so well childhood’s idea about beauty. There is an extraordinary gaiety in a great toyshop which makes it preferable to a fine bourgeois apartment. Is not the whole of life to be found there in miniature – and far more highly coloured, sparkling and polished than real life? There we see gardens, theatres, beautiful dresses, eyes pure as diamonds, cheeks ablaze with rouge, charming lace, carriages, stables, cattle-sheds, drunkards, charlatans, bankers, actors, punchinellos like foreworks, kitchens, and whole armies, in perfect discipline, with cavalry and artillery. (...)

Paper Proposals Wanted for MMLA

A Literary Shelter for Misfit Dolls; Exploring Doll Play
Dolls have existed since the Stone Age and appear often in literature, but the signifcance of doll play has not been addressed. “Literary Dolls” are often bedraggled objects that resemble inhabitants of Rudolph’s Island of Misfit Toys. Yet, children love them because, like them, their dolls are imperfect. Laura’s doll in Little House in the Big Woods, a handkerchief wrapped corncob, is both an object of pity and a beloved toy. Dicken’s Jenny Wren repairs dolls to find the perfect form her own crippled body denies her. Papers could address how dolls provide companionship, why children prefer simple dolls or “misfit” dolls, how imaginative children create dolls out of anything, how dolls become ritual objects, etc.. .

Please send abstracts to Ellen M. Tsagaris, etsag1998@aol.com by June 6th. .

Chair: Ellen M. Tsagaris, etsag1998@aol.com.

Rosalie Whyel

See below, and go ahead and subscribe. It is fre and lovely in Adobe format.

Welcome to the Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art Newsletter email version. Simply double click on the attachment, feel free to print this version or just read online.

In this issue: COMING FAIRIES EXHIBIT
PAINTING ACQUISITION
LATEST BOOKS
FAIRIES INVADE THE STORE
& MORE!


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Sincerely,

Shelley Helzer
Co-Director
Rosalie Whyel Museum of Doll Art
Ph 425-455-1116 Fx 425-455-4793
www.dollart.com

Strong National Museum of Play Latest Newsletter

I'm going to start posting my favorite newsletters here and on my other blogs. Both my books are out, my collection of Poems, Sappho, I should have Listened contains the poem "The Vampure Doll Collector," and A Bibliography of Doll Sources is illustrated in BW with all kinds of possibilities for doll research and museum visits. Both are $8.00 each and available from me. Let me know via comments or email, and I can send a copy. Postage will not be much. Proceeds will ultimately fund our brick and mortar museum.

Light Up the Night – RIT Big Shot at The Strong on May 5
From: The Strong's National Museum of Play
The_Strong_s_National_Museum_of_@mail.vresp.com To: etsag1998

RIT Big Shot Project
at The Strong's National Museum of Play
One Manhattan Square • Rochester

Thursday, May 5
7:45 p.m.

Grab a friend, bring a flashlight or camera flash, and come help "paint"
the museum exterior for a spectacular nighttime photograph.

Rain or shine. Wear dark clothing and comfortable shoes.

For details visit the National Museum of Play's Big Shot page.







--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From 1994 article about Bob Hope

Billie Nelson Tyrrell and Bob Hope Doll:

Billie Nelson Tyrell, who owns more than 500 autographed celebrity dolls, smuggled in a doll of the comedian, hoping to get it signed.

"They told me he wouldn't sign it," the Studio City woman said. "That he was only signing the photographs. I stuck it in my purse and pulled it out when I got up there. He signed it on the back. He really seemed to like it."

Billie Nelson Tyrrell Celebrity Doll Auction

From: About.com--

Celebrity Doll Auction In Los Angeles This Weekend
By Denise Van Patten, About.com Guide April 7, 2011

My BioHeadlinesForumRSSWhen I lived in the Los Angeles area in the 1990s, I frequently visited the wonderful doll shop of Billie Nelson Tyrell. Billie is a well-known doll collector herself--with extensive ties to Hollywood, Billie long focused her collection on celebrity dolls. This weekend, Theriault's auction house is holding an auction of Billie's celebrity dolls from 1900 through 1950, as well as of her large collection of rare French dolls, German characters and Lenci portrait dolls.

I would very much like to attend this auction in person, but due to my continuing commitment to appear in Annie Get Your Gun this month, I am unable to. If you, however, are able to attend this auction, even if it is just to see the collection, you should take the chance. The auction takes place April 9 and 10 at a very-Hollywood location--the Sheraton Universal in Studio City.Comments (1)See All Posts Share