$1,400
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sold
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Description
10" (25 cm.) Each is an all-fabric doll with stitch-shaped center-seam face, embroidered eyes, and lips, defined pointy chin and nose, blonde fleecy hair, five-piece body with jointing at shoulders and hips. Condition: dolls excellent, costumes frail. Marks: Polish Victim's Relief Fund (one side of medal) Health and Happiness to You, Kind Doll Lover, Who by taking into your heart and home one of my little doll waifs of Poland have fed a starving mother or child in that ‘saddest land', Helena Paderewski, copyright 1915 (other side of medal). Comments: French, circa 1915, Madame Helena Paderewski, wife of the noted pianist, used her celebrity-hood to oversee the production of artistic cloth dolls that were sold to society ladies to benefit widows and orphans of WWI; an intriguing story about the dolls appears in The Encyclopedia of French Dolls by Theimer. Value Points: the sister dolls are wearing their original costumes (albeit quite frail) and have their original silver medallions.