19th Century Paper Dolls

Fritzi Scheff was an American actress and singer who was popular in the early 20th century, though I have included her here because she was working by the turn of the century and her outfits are certainly reminiscent of the end of the Belle Epoque. This single page was done by John Axe and sports one of his nicer female dolls (click the image to see more details).

I admit I have not been working on my own 19th Century dolls for a while here as I reorganize my workspace and get things in order. But in case you missed it, I am regularly updating my other paper doll blog: Comic Book Chronicles.

I am hoping to post new stuff here soon enough, but in the mean time I hope you are enjoying seeing some of the stuff in my collection.

Maurice Barrymore was one of the great actors of the late 19th century (and the father of an acting dynasty that continues today).

19th century actors are a lot of fun because stage costumes back then were so fanciful (and often even ridiculous).

This is one of a handful of John Axe dolls I have in my collection. While I often enjoy Axe's subjects, his dolls are of mixed success for me. I think his faces in particular are not very attractive, unfortunately. In the case of this set of dolls, for example, the first one is good, but the second one looks a little strange, especially when you consider that Maurice Barrymore was quite handsome. Still, it's a nice small set and I enjoy having it as part of my collection.  Click on the image to see the art in much better detail!

Also, click here to see the original costume of "Orlando" represented above.

This is a recent and unusual acquisition of mine, produced in 1985 by Press Pacifica in Hawaii, the dolls were designed by Cassandra Land-Nellist, and carefully researched from photo archives.

King Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma (later called Kaleleonalani), enjoyed a very short reign in Hawaii, from 1856 to 1863, and were loved because of their care and concern for improving the lives of their people.

You can read more about them here and here. They look like such a beautiful couple and seemed to have been very happy in their very brief time together.

This collection includes 14 pages of lovely period clothing including their wedding attire (at left), fancy formal wear, casual wear, and the queen's wardrobe following the death of her husband (including her mourning gown).

This is one of those lovely sets that I would really enjoy cutting, but since I've never seen it anywhere else, I'm going to keep it intact. The paper it is printed on is likewise lovely: textured and thick. The colors are absolutely vibrant. I acquired this off of that evil place known as eBay for a very reasonable price (it seemed).

The painting is of Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts

Angela was, in 1837, the wealthiest woman in England. You can read more about her at the above link, but you might like to know that in contrast to some heiresses today, she used her immense fortune toward charity, for the most part. She also, at an advanced age, "shocked polite society" by marrying her young secretary who was 40 years her junior.

The painting, done in the 1840s, shows her as a young woman in a beautiful gown (click on the picture to see larger).  She kinda looks like Dolly Madison on the doughnut and cookies boxes (for those of you who remember the old advertisements).

ALSO: As promised, on Halloween (tomorrow) I am kicking off a new paper doll blog based on a couple of favorite comic book series of mine. The initial dolls are finished and posted already. You can set a new bookmark to: Comic Book Chronicles to join the fun!

I am reminded that one of the reasons I began this blog was to sort of catalog the collection of paper dolls of the 19th Century that I have acquired over the years. I've been so distracted working on other stuff, I've hardly talked about the wonderful books available out there at all!

Today I offer a glimpse of Norma Lu Meehan's Victorian Paper Doll Wardrobe. I think this one is out of print, but you can find it on eBay and the like. Meehan's work is amazing on a lot of levels: she works from actual gowns from actual historical collections, which makes the amount of detail incredible. This particular set of dresses is from the Northern Indiana Historical Society.

In the book there are three dolls and 12 dresses ranging from the 1860s to the 1890s (with an emphasis on the 90s ~ but a nice range of styles of that decade). The one I've posted here is from 1887 and was worn to a wedding reception (click the picture to see more details).

That's the other great thing about Meehan's books: the notes are fabulous, often telling who owned the dress, where it was worn (and why), and providing other detail about the type of material, accessories, etc.

Meehan has a number of books, all equally detailed (and just recently published a new book of 19th century wedding fashions ~ which I hope to acquire soon). I have several of her other books and will share reviews on them also.

And while I'm posting, I just want to say that I realize I am slow at posting new material of my own and hope to remedy that. On Halloween, I'll be launching a second blog with a project I have been working on (and which will be updating more quickly doll-wise that this one). Stay tuned!

Historical Fashion is a new blog with some really wonderful images of fashions for across all time periods (though there is a nice emphasis on 19th century stuff at the moment ~ including the image of two 1860s silk dresses reposted here).

Although the blog has just started up, it looks like it will be worth bookmarking as the creator seems enthusiastic on the subject and has been posting regularly. There is not much commentary, but it is a photoblog predominantly, and the pictures so far have been gorgeous!

If you are interested in more than just 19th Century fashions, then check it out!

(Click to view at full size)

(Click to view at full size) I will post Katie's clothes tomorrow.

I uploaded the painted dolls to a photo album in the sidebar (at the right) under the heading "Paper Dolls" (obvious enough?). But I don't really like the way the album displays them: so tiny! And they are spaced apart so far as well. Weird.

Anyway, since I have been fussing with doing that, I haven't accomplished much else in the limited time I allotted myself to work on these dolls this evening. The good news is: the dolls are there and you can download them and print them and they should be at a decent enough resolution to print well. Meanwhile, I am still painting their clothes (almost finished), and I will be posting those during the week (I'm a bit behind, alas ~ but what's new, right?). I also posted the dolls here, since I figure they deserved their own post for all the trouble they've caused me this evening.   I will try to find a better way to put all the dolls in one place since I'm not satisfied with the album thingy. In the meantime, at least they are here.

I think, now that I am almost done with one set of dolls, the dolls to come will be a lot easier (fingers crossed).

I re-uploaded the dolls to include the original commentary that went with them (just so that they would be complete. Also, because I included the commentary on their clothing and thought it would be strange that the dolls came without any. These dolls are printable and their clothes (which I will post tomorrow) will be scaled to fit them properly. If you had already downloaded the previous dolls, the scale should be the same.

It's been a long journey, but I think we're finally off and running!

Thank you for hanging in there with me!

Bibliodyssey (a regular great source of fashion plates and other antique manuscripts of interest), recently had a post of Les Fleurs Animees.

In the 19th century there were some (what appear to be) popular paper doll sets based on this concept of costumes designed using flowers as inspiration, but the plates shown on the site include some really interesting ones that I have not seen before, including this lovely image of a woman dressed in what appears to be like a nun's habit fashioned from water lilies.

While I have no ambition in particular to make any flower dolls of my own, they are fascinating to look at and provide fun inspiration for the possibility of masquerade costumes later on down the road.

I couldn't find, in a quick search, the set of 19th century dolls I am referring to above (I thought I could quickly, but apparently they're all hiding now that the spring season is over), but I will continue to look and will post them when I manage to scrounge them up.