Very Important English 18th Century Wooden Dolls in Original Native American Crees Costumes

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16" (41 cm.), 13" and 7". Each of the all-wooden dolls has one-piece head and torso, painted-over-gesso complexion and facial features, blush spots; the two larger with enamel inset eyes, dot lashes, dot-arched brows, cloth upper arms and wooden lower legs with hip jointing, and tacked-on human hair hand-knotted wig; the smaller arranged in cradleboard, with painted outlined eyes, cloth arms, hip-jointed wooden legs. Condition: generally excellent. Comments: English, late 1700s, in original authentic costume of the Eastern Cree Indians who were major trading partners of the English Hudson Bay Company, and it is certain that this partnership influenced this present set of dolls. In an article "A Collaboration of Cultures", Susan Hedrick, then curator at the Rosalie Whyel Museum, wrote "trade with Europeans gradually affected the Cree culture, including their model of dress. Early clothing...was most likely made of buckskin, cedar bark and mountain goat wool. Later garments, post European contact, were constructed of navy blue and red blanket cloth (English stroud wool) and trimmed with buttons, glass beads and even thimbles. The Museum's Cree dolls reflect a transition period between these two styles, providing an important pictorial record of Cree clothing from this period." Value Points: very important historically, the dolls are also a visual triumph, with extraordinary and authentically-detailed costumes, of which only two other examples are known to exist. The dolls are featured in the book, The Art of the Tree, by Rosalie Whyel and Jill Gorman, pp.60/61, and the book, The Rose Unfolds, by Rosalie Whyel and Susan Hedrick, pp. 10/11, with further information about the costumes.