$3,400
Sold
sold
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Description
9" (23 cm.) Each of the all-cloth dolls has a heart-shaped face with defined features, stiffened oil finish with painted complexion and delicately-embroidered features, delicate stitched-on wig, firmly-stuffed kid body with flat-cut leather fingers. Condition: generally excellent. Comments: early 1800s, the dolls are featured in The Art of Dolls, 1700-1940 by Madeline Merrill, described as cloth dolls from the Azores, and named Lady of St. Michael's, Lady of Terceira, and Lady of High Estate. The Portugese Azores were a traveling destination and stop-over for Europeans during the 18th and 19th centuries, including Chateaubriand, the French writer who stopped there while escaping to America during the French Revolution, and later, Mark Twain, who described his visit to the Azores in his 1869 book, The Innocents Abroad. Value Points: pristine condition of the very rare and artfully constructed dolls, completely original including multi-layered hand-stitched costumes; the dolls were preserved in the Merrill Collection and Lieberman Collection under a glass dome (which is included).