Wee Wooden Doll

With events and meetings cancelled, social distancing, and many people staying close to home, the Austin Doll Collectors Society has challenged its members to engage in a virtual doll meeting by sharing their doll activities on-line, from rearranging their collections, showing off their repair or redressing projects, or simply displaying their latest treasure.  We start off with this marvelous miniature belonging to member Sharon Weintraub.

Just 2.75 inches high, this diminutive wooden doll is jointed at the hips, shoulder, elbows, and knees.  The little guy came in an old New Haven watch box with the fragile fragments of his original suit of aqua silk trimmed with tiny tarnished golden cord; all that remains intact is a cream silk shirt front, lace underpants, and his delightful hat. This type of antique jointed wood doll is most likely from the Grodnertal region of Germany and dates from the early to mid-1800s.  Collectors sometimes refer to these dolls as "peg woodens" because of the wooden pegs allowing their joints to move.  He is what some collectors call an "alien head," as his head appears to be molded papier mache or composition instead of carved wood.