Monday 9 January 2017

Day 9 - Research and eye candy......

Long term readers of this blog will know that I'm a martyr to Pinterest.  I pop in to 'research' a topic... maybe a vintage toy, or a costume style, or perhaps a theme, such as Alice in Wonderland, or Beatrix Potter... thinking I'll be in and out in 5 minutes, then 2 hours later I'm still there, but a million miles away from where I started.

So, having posted yesterday about wanting to make some child/toy combinations, I spent some considerable time during the evening,  hunting out inspirational images.

As you do.

I've no idea how long I spent, but at the end of it I had a collection of dozens of illustrations, which I saved to a folder on my laptop.

Here are just a few of my favourites.....





Before the advent of photography, we had to rely on portraits for information on domestic life and in particular the lives of children.   These Georgian and Regency girls above, with their dolls, offer a charming snapshot showing costume details and a variety of styles of their best loved dolls.





These early examples of Victorian photography capture much greater detail and the similarities between the styles of the girls and their dolls is striking.  









I'd love to know what has happened to all of these dolls... perhaps they are languishing in attics or basements or gathering dust in doll collections, never to be played with again.

Eventually, inevitably, I got sidetracked and found some lovely costumes, which would definitely be a challenge to recreate in miniature.



Difficult.... but hopefully not impossible, so watch this space!

6 comments:

elizabeth s said...

Quite the collection of images! I've never looked so I had no idea how many girls with dolls pictures there were, and I would imagine that this is only a fraction of what else is on line.
Don't you just love Pinterest ?!

Esther said...

Hi Sandra, I have been reading a bit on folk art paintings as I wanted to paint one as a Christmas card for a friend. One of the things I learned was that, occasionally, pictures were painted posthumously and that certain symbolism was an indicator. For example, two I recall offhand were a child wearing only one shoe and also a child pointing upwards.
My cat, Abby, can sympathize with Small Dog this evening. She tried to jump up on the arm of my chair just as I was lifting my fresh mug of tea. We all got wet and Abby went back to sit on her scratching post and gave me irritated looks for the rest of the evening. The armchair sulked in soggy silence. Esther

Kathy Moore said...

Charming photographs. LIttle girls and their dollies.I would love to see you do little boys in sailor suits with their sailboats!!

Helma said...

Lovely pictures of the girls with her doll.

Helma

downthelanewithdaisy@gmail.com said...

Lovely results to all your research. It really is fascinating to look back and see such beautiful detail. Real craftmanship. Thanks.

rosanna said...

The children portraits are so sweet, it's poignant to think that they aren't any more , hopefully they left kids and families so their memories might be still alive