He won the Oscar for Best Actor, a Golden Globe, a SAG award, and a Bafta, among others.
Dolls have always been a part of humankind, found in Egyptian excavations, and in Greek and Roman children's graves. Dolls and history go hand in hand, so is my intention with this blog to convey my passion for the dolls of the Renaissance, and the 19th and early 20th century. By borrowing from the work of the masters and archival photographs, I will be able to link them to the history of the times and briefly touch on the primitives. Welcome to my blog, and stay awhile.
Monday, February 28, 2011
"A Good Mind and Great Dimples" my tribute to Colin Firth
He won the Oscar for Best Actor, a Golden Globe, a SAG award, and a Bafta, among others.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Portrait of Jenny Lind "The Swedish Nightingale"
Dolls with this typical type of hair style are called "Jenny Lind". Shoulder head made from glazed china, hairstyle with middle parting, wavy long hairstrands that stand out at the sides rather widely, combed to the rear and shaped into a wreath.
Never classically attractive, lacking confidence in herself, and generally seeming shy and quiet to people she met, Lind was an entirely different person on stage. "I awoke this morning as one person and retired in the evening as another."
Possibly A B & G... Jenny Lind doll ca. 1870's
Andersen often fell in love with unattainable women . One of his stories, "The Nightingale", was a written expression of his passion for Lind, and became the inspiration for her nickname, the "Swedish Nightingale". Andersen was often shy around women and had extreme difficulty in proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train , Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not the same; she saw him as a brother, writing to him in 1844. farewell... God bless and protect my brother is the sincere wish of his affectionate sister, Jenny."
Despite Lind’s respectable image, during the time she lived in Munich a prominent intellectual introduced her to Felix Mendelssohn, one of the greatest composers of the era. Despite Mendelssohn's happy marriage, the two shared a romantic attraction.
During the brief American phase of her career, between September of 1850 and May of 1852. Her trip to the United States was organized by the great showman Phineas T. Barnum, best remembered today by the circus that bears his name; He may never have had a greater triumph than his launch of Lind's tour. Tickets for her concerts reached astronomical prices, and her image soon adorned an incredible range of consumer items. Barnum profited handsomely, and Lind became perhaps the first person who could be described using the distinctly modern term "celebrity."
As Lind made triumphant appearances in New York and then toured the eastern seaboard and the cities along the Mississippi River, the British Jenny Lind mania was repeated and amplified. The later parts of her tour brought Lind one unexpected benefit; she married on February 5, 1855 and returned to Europe settling in Dresden, Germany. She had two sons and a daughter and by that time, the family had moved to Lind's beloved England.
Jenny Lind China shoulder head with cloth body, and leather lower arms...Possibly Conta Boehme.
In 1851, the Nightingale left its berth place in Eliot, Maine. It was towed up to Boston, Mass.. Owners planned to use clipper to whisk 50 first-class passengers to the London World's Fair. In Boston the carved figurehead of a woman resembling the Swedish Nightingale, Jenny Lind was added. At least, that's what Karl-Eric Svardskog , antique collector believes.
Jenny, like a ghost, did not respond.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
"Beautiful and Intriguing Portrait Dolls"
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