Here are two dolls in a box, rediscovered in my loft while adding insulation. Very nice, you may think, until you inspect them more closely. So let’s do that.
Out of the box it’s possible to see that these poor dolls are disintegrating like disinterred Egyptian mummies. The arm of the lady crumbled as I lifted her out of the box, exposing the wires inside. Let’s have a closer look at the faces.
What a horror story! These are the celebrated Paynet dolls that were created from the cartoons of the much loved cartoonist Raymond Paynet in France in the 1950s. As we can see from a look at the box:
this pair represents his classic cartoon The Lovers. As you can also see they are a deformable doll and they have most definitely deformed, poor things. The words on the right give us a clue as to why: fabrication techingom describes the wonderful new (in the Fifties) technical way of making dolls by spraying foam on to a wire armature set in a mould. This made eminently poseable dolls but as is very plain the spray foam deteriorated rapidly with exposure to light and actually disintegrated with exposure to air.
I bought my dolls in the Sixties on a cultural exchange to Paris. The dolls were everywhere at the time and selling briskly as collector dolls. Sold with them were hermetically sealed cabinets that the chic French collector would have on the wall of her chambre and no doubt these would have been a highly desirable decorating item for the French teenager, too sophisticated to actually play with dolls but very keen to make a collection. Many versions of the dolls were available. Looking at them now, I’m amazed at how well the clothes were made for a doll that was clearly so very cheaply mass produced. They are properly hemmed, finely seamed and sewn on to the dolls. When I bought my dolls I was assured that keeping them in the box with the cellophane lid sealed round the edge with sticky tape was enough to preserve them. I am sure that spending the last 20 odd years in a dark loft with still dark air may have helped them. In the sunlight they would be nothing but a memory.
How many of the hermetically sealed wooden boxes and contents survived you can judge from the price asked for the dolls on Ebay, most are described, unsurprisingly, as ‘very rare’ and all the pictures I have been able to find are of dolls with a distinct suntan. I examined mine under the clothes and the poor little things are orange everywhere, so clearly the presence of air is not very life giving at all. 
As you can also see the manufacture of the cardboard box has left a great deal to be desired. To be fair this is a 44 year old cardboard box with a cellophane lid and I do remember it being slightly sturdy when I bought it and it did start life travelling by air from France in a suitcase which probably didn’t improve it much anyway.
The Peynet dolls, however, do give a huge clue as to why I bother to make dolls in porcelain. There are many ways of making dolls and porcelain is undoubtedly the most hassle. It’s a complete pain in the neck. If you read the glossary on the shop pages you can see the absolute palaver I go through in order to make a doll. I could make a doll so much more easily if I used polymer clay; it is relatively quick and easy and I would have so much more time to devote to making clothes, I could make them look great. If I glued the clothes on I could do even better in terms of realism and accessories. I could make dolls out of Milliput, and halve the work. They wouldn’t move as well but it would give me much more time to spend on decoration, though I would have to spend time on surface finishing with paint. Then I would hope collectors would outgrow their dolls or tire of their collections or predecease their dolls.
I’m an old fashioned type, I think heirloom should mean just that. I care a lot about the dolls I make being alive and well long after I am dust, they are my posterity and a proper collector item. I put most of my effort into making the actual doll and I know it can, hundreds of years into the future, be restrung, redressed and enjoyed by generations of your descendants. Your doll and mine will be a lasting joy whether it is mint and boxed or very thoroughly played with.
I enjoy the film Planet of the Apes except for the scene where the hero finds a talking vinyl doll, proof that humans once had speech. As we now know, certain types of plastic doll are prone to weep and rot, a plastic doll buried in a cave by the sea would be most unlikely to survive recognisable as a doll, and if it were a Peynet doll it would turn to dust and blow away like Dracula at the first shaft of sunlight. To make that scene in the film true only one type of doll would do it. An all porcelain doll with glass eyes set with plaster of Paris has the ability to last for hundreds of years half buried in sand, up a mountain, or even on the moon.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t make dolls from less durable materials or collect such dolls. I just think you should be aware that modern technologies are by definition untested by time.
I don’t know what to do with my Peynet dolls, perhaps I should try to reseal them with Clingfilm and put them back in the still, dark loft. I could get them out in another 20 years and show you what I find. I have a horrible feeling it will be more like the Vampire Returns or the Mummy Awakes than the Lovers Reunited. My only consolation is that they’ll be rotting together.
You won’t get that with a doll from JaneLaverick.com . They are your friends forever and your children’s children’s children’s and with a bit of restringing and redressing, their children’s too. They like sunshine and being played with and I shall get on with photographing the very small ones as soon as I have posted this.
