Wax shoulder-head doll
Category
Dolls
Date
circa 1850
Materials
Wax shoulder-head doll
Measurements
690 mm (height)
Collection
Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire
NT 658891
Summary
A wax shoulder-headed doll with moulded facial features, inset black glass eyes and a blonde mohair wig styled in untidy ringlets. The cracked wax shoulder-head is glued to the body (made of cotton, stuffed with wood shavings, some of which are escaping through the seams). The arms and legs are also cotton stuffed with wood shavings, but the hands are made of leather, with separate fingers, and thumbs sewn on. She is wearing a long blue fine woollen dress which has a trim of black silk (quite frayed) around the cuffs, hem, near the top edge of the bodice and as binding around the neck and at the waist. There is a frill of white lace inside the cuffs. Underneath she wears a white cotton chemise which has broderie anglaise at the neck edge, and white cotton drawers with pintucks and broderie anglaise at the ankles. She has a necklace of pearly, possibly plastic, beads.