The club met at member Bette Birdsong's home, where she gave a program on French faux bamboo doll furniture. She explained that after trade opened with China and Japan in the 1860s, a style of furniture called “chinoiserie” that incorporated Asian motifs became popular in Europe. However, bamboo was too fragile for heavier European furniture, so companies began creating faux bamboo furniture using hardwoods. Doll furniture reflected this popular style throughout the 1800s. She displayed these examples from the collection of her sister, Lynda Eitel.
Bette said that the early faux bamboo doll furniture was high-end and often associated with French fashion
dolls. Toy armoires, like this one, featured mirrored doors, as well as shelves for storing doll clothing and linen.
Night tables and dressing tables sometimes had marble tops. The night stand has a cabinet for secreting the chamberpot, while the dressing table features racks on the sides for holding towels.
The settee and chair have woven cane seats and the table folds up for storage,
Bette told the club that beds were the most expensive of such furniture, often outfitted with feather pillows and mattresses, as well as lace canopies. Lynda's bed has tiny metal casters and an arm for supporting a delicate canopy of lace or net.
Sometimes pieces can be found with the maker’s label. Choumer and Collet began making making doll furniture in 1867 and later contracted with the American toy store FAO Schwarz. Faux bamboo doll furniture was exhibited at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
Member Sharon Weintraub shared this French all-bisque doll by Fernand Sustrac, with ball-jointed elbows. Sustrac patented this doll in 1877. Sharon got the doll from a woman who had inherited the doll from her grandmother. The family spent time in France in the late 1800s and the woman assumed that the doll was probably purchased then.
Bette displayed this Black character doll, attributed to the German firm of Bahr and Proschild. She said that the doll is on "permanent loan" from her sister, Lynda.
In honor of Halloween, member Elaine Jackson brought this cloth "gypsy" doll made in the 1970s by a local doll artist, Ann Lind. Elaine told the club that as a child she sometimes dressed up for Halloween as a gypsy woman wearing skirts, scarves, and jewelry borrowed from her mother's wardrobe.
