$550
Sold
sold

Click image to enlarge
Description
18" (46 cm.) h. 14" head circumference. Honey-toned poured wax socket head of infant baby, eyes modeled nearly closed with painted outlined pupils, closed mouth, softly-stuffed muslin body, sateen mitten hands, antique costume. Condition: generally excellent. Comments: the wax model of the infant doll head created by Grace Storey Putnam, designed to present to manufacturers in an effort to promote its production. She wrote of this in The Fascinating Story of Dolls by Janet Johl (1941), "In the summer of 1920 I landed in New York City...I gave myself six months time to put over my idea. I carried my big thick plaster mould with me and the wax-head model of the "Bye-Lo" doll, only it was not named as yet. I began to take the doll about to the manufacturers. They shook their heads over it - it was too realistic...It was all taking so long and was so hard on me and the children". She went on, relating that after some time she finally contracted with the Borgfeldt firm, but "It was two years after I signed the contract before the dolls made their entrance into the world. I thought I would actually starve before." Value Points: very rare and important historic model of the iconic American doll and doll artist of which she finally wrote "it was so much a part of me, a woman who wanted motherhood and art, too".