The brand, if I can call it that, is me. All my dolls are mine, as you know if you are a regular reader. All my porcelain dolls begin as sculptures done by me, from which I make the moulds.
When the current iteration of porcelain doll making began in the sixties, with the invention of a kiln that could run off a domestic electricity supply, in America, when demand for antique collectable dolls exceeded supply, the problem was acquiring moulds. The makers of the kilns began producing moulds by taking moulds from antique dolls they had collected. You can make a plaster of Paris mould, and, nowadays, a silicone mould, by pouring or otherwise placing plaster of Paris or silicone, or any other moulding material round the object to be moulded. When the mould has gone hard the object is removed leaving a hole of the same shape to be filled, thus producing a copy.
There is, however, a pitfall, which the original suppliers of moulds by this method were lucky to have avoided. This is, that any shape is copyrighted by being made. Disney are, quite rightly, very jealous of their stars such as Mickey Mouse. If you bought a Disney Mickey Mouse and copied it, their entire copyright infringement department would be on you like a pack of lawyers. It was probably only because the original makers of, for example, the French Fashion dolls of the nineteenth century, were long dead, that the domestic kiln suppliers got away with it. Copyright does lapse in theory seventy years after the death of the author but the law has changed on this topic several times.
So all of my moulds and the originals are copyright to me until I’ve been dead for seventy years. The copyright issue persists because I have quite often made dolls inspired by dolls from the past, but with my own sculptures, not by taking moulds from existing antique dolls. This Miniatura I am introducing a new collection of dolls from the past in miniature. These avoid copyright issues by all being from my own sculptures from my own hand and additionally, interestingly, from my own hand in the past.
On the top row, brand new, are miniature versions of ancient Greek dolls. The originals, which are about four thousand years old, now live in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and were found in tombs. They were made of terracotta, bone or ivory and typically wear a headdress called a polos, a tunic and shoes. The human originals of the dolls were dancers.
Next in line are miniaturised versions of my take on seventeenth century English dolls. Lord and Lady Clapham absolutely fascinated me when I first contracted dollitis. I initially made the dolls to be twenty-fourth scale house residents. I am now shrinking them to be dolls’ dolls. There are only a few of each, as you can see because the best ones I made, I will use to make more moulds. If these appear on my table and you love them please do get them while you can, they will not appear in this size again.
I am also going to shrink the bottom row of nineteen thirties dolls, so these are all prototypes.
The next picture was going to be more prototypes, except that some rushing doll maker forgot to save one to make moulds. So these will stay at this size. At just over three inches they are little girls in your twelfth scale house.
Doll enthusiasts will identify these as nineteenth century French Fashion types by the huge eyes, the jointing of the neck into the body and the pierced ears. I plan to dress these as French Fashion miniatures with the customary million frills.
This is the group you might consider to be ethical tributes to dolls of the past. Next posting might be the new new (and some new stuff.) I like a bit of new. Do you?
~~~~~~~~~~~
Still a few tickets, not many. www.miniatura.co.uk
