Using 19th Century Magazines for Design Inspiration

Google Books yields lots of inspiration sources from 19th century primary documents. Primary documents, such as the Les Follets illustrations in this post, show what people actually wore, rather than a what we think they wore.   I'm particularly interested in 19th century children's clothing, so I love searching various topics and finding wonderful graphics.   Look at this outfit for a child in 1863:

A simple white dress 

adorned with red trim 

makes a stylish statement: 

The same color scheme is used in reverse 

a velvet  red dress trimmed with white cording

layered over a simple white undershirt or blouse.  

Thank you to Google Books  for preserving these books and documents so that they are readily available for our research. 

Queen Anne Doll to Be Auctioned at Withington's October 2012 Auction

Withington's, as always, has some lovely dolls to be auctioned on October 18th, 2012.  This wooden doll is from about 1750 and is lovely.  She was once featured in The Art of Dolls. 

And hands!

Columbian Doll at Lucy's Doll House

This is a smaller Columbian Doll.  I forgot to measure her!   But she has a different body construction than the larger dolls I've seen.  The back, shown below with Emma Adams stamp, is made of two parts.  

The front either is made of 3 pieces or is 1 piece with two darts. 

The chunky legs of Columbian dolls are charming,

and are reminiscent of toddlers. 

Enjoy the rest of the pictures of this sweet doll. 

Topsy Turvy Dolls

Some members of the Maida Dolls Group have been working on Topsy Turvy Dolls.  This was prompted by the invitation hosted by Art Dolls Quarterly.   Visit the Maida Dolls group to see what they're up to, and be inspired by the images of this lovely antique doll I saw at the 2010 Withington's doll auction.  ~ Dixie