Collection
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Decorative Arts and Design

Lady Doll, Sanitary Fair

Attributed to Alt, Beck, & Gottshalch

Object Label

Another doll from the Brooklyn Sanitary Fair, this one shows extensive signs of use, most likely as a child’s toy. Little is known about the doll, although its beautifully detailed day-wear outfit, elaborate Victorian hairstyle, and dainty earrings clearly indicate it is intended to represent a grown woman rather than a child or young girl. Displayed along with the Eliza Lefferts doll in an exhibition called Early American Handicraft at the Brooklyn Museum in 1924, this doll was very recently rediscovered in the Museum’s Decorative Arts holdings and is shown here for the first time in eighty-five years.

Caption

Attributed to Alt, Beck, & Gottshalch (1854–1913). Lady Doll, Sanitary Fair, ca. 1864. Bisque porcelain, glaze, tinted glaze, paint, glass, adhesive, undyed cotton, horsehair, vegetable tanned leather, cotton, silk, mother-of-pearl, wool, glazed (?) cotton, 27 1/2 x 17 x 4 1/2 in. (69.9 x 43.2 x 11.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Thomas H. Beardsley, 24.577.

Gallery

Not on view

Title

Lady Doll, Sanitary Fair

Date

ca. 1864

Medium

Bisque porcelain, glaze, tinted glaze, paint, glass, adhesive, undyed cotton, horsehair, vegetable tanned leather, cotton, silk, mother-of-pearl, wool, glazed (?) cotton

Dimensions

27 1/2 x 17 x 4 1/2 in. (69.9 x 43.2 x 11.4 cm)

Markings

Typewritten paper label pinned to the inside bottom edge of skirt: "DOLL BOUGHT AT THE SANITARY FAIR, 1864/Gift of Mrs. Thomas H. Beardsley/15139 (handwritten in ink)"; tag handwritten in pencil: "15139" sewn to bottom edge of jacket.

Credit Line

Gift of Mrs. Thomas H. Beardsley

Accession Number

24.577

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Artists and makers

Alt, Beck, & Gottshalch

1 work in the collection