Taking a Seat

Most bathing beauties recline, some sit on the ground, and a smaller percentage are made to stand.  Very few are molded in a sitting position because this would mean that the manufacturer or jobber would have to go through the extra expense of providing these little ladies a suitable seat.   The ever creative and thrifty Hertwig and Company solved this problem by using natural seashells, manufactured already by Mother Nature.  This little precolored bisque belle perches on a real shell.  She wears her original bathing suit and cap and is just 2.75 inches high, not counting her conch couch.  

Here she appears in the Hertwig catalogue.  As can be seen in the catalogue picture, Miss Shell, my belle, has lost the rayon ribbon trim that formed the suit's straps, as well as a little decorative bow on her left knee.   

Two larger versions of sirens seated on shells.  The catalogue refers to them as "Badedame auf echter Muschel" (bathing lady on a real shell).

Here is one of these larger ladies, sans shell, but comfortably seated in a wonderful little woven beach chair.  The cushion under her seat, which could have served to hold pins, has been hand painted with  the words "1,000 Islands."  Perhaps this was a souvenir from a visit to the archipelago of scenic islands where the Saint Lawrence River meets Lake Ontario (certainly a much more romantic notion than an advertisement for a popular salad dressing).  Also of precolored bisque, she retains her original swimsuit, complete with ribbons, and is approximately 3 inches tall.