$1,200
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Description
21" (53 cm.) Earthenware sculpted head with flanged neck and sculpted short curly hair, with tousled forehead bangs, small blue glass sleep eyes, upper and lower brown eye shadow, short brows, accented nostrils, closed mouth in wide expressive smile with a row of sculpted upper teeth, tongue, and impressed dimples at the lip corners, firmly-stuffed cloth torso, disc-jointed arms and legs. Condition: generally excellent. Marks: Gladdie Copyright by Helen W. Jensen Germany. Comments: the model appeared in the Borgfeldt catalog of 1929 under the tradename of Gladdie; it was produced in both earthenware and bisque. Helen Webster Jensen, born in Chicago in 1896 studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and in 1928 moved to Santa Monica, California with her husband where the two pursued a career in portrait bust sculpting; many of their commissioned works exist in the Los Angeles area and she is cited in Edan Hughes book, Artists in California, 1786-1940. She died in Seattle in 1990, and it is likely that Gladdie was the only doll model she sculpted, said to be a portrait of her own daughter. Value Points: wonderfully-preserved example of the distinctive doll, beautiful complexion, original organdy peach costume and bonnet.