Nice Kicks

Throughout Europe, shoes have long been a symbol of prosperity, luck, and fertility. With the expansion of the porcelain industry, and the Victorian's love of knick-knacks, miniature shoes of china and porcelain, often with elaborate adornments, became a popular collectible and gift. This fanciful footwear is by the German firm of Galluba and Hofmann, demonstrating that this company produced products other its famed bathing beauties and fashion ladies, often featured on this blog.

The shoes are lavishly decorated with applied flowers and gilt (I wonder why I have never seen on of their lovely ladies so bedecked?). The pink shoes are trimmed with blue forget-me-not flowers, a popular decoration on china ornaments of the period, which were often given as gifts. Both pieces are 4 inches long and the boot is 3.5 inches high.

Each is stamped on the sole with Galluba's crowned shield mark. 

 

Gorgeous Goebel

This large and lovely bathing beauty is an unusual example from the German firm of William Goebel. Her excellent china was made with precolored pink slip and her orange-red tank suit is cold-painted. 

Her exquisite face is framed by her glossy black bobbed hair and her slender hands gesture gracefully.

Underneath she is incised with Goebel's crowned intertwined "G" and "W," as well as "F.N. 757." This use of capital letters is also typical of Goebel. This big beautiful bathing belle is 6.5 inches long and 3 inches high.

 

Gayly Sounds the Castanet,

Beating time to bounding feet, 

When, after daylight's golden set, 

Maids and youths by moonlight meet.

Maltese Air, Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

A collector would be happy to meet such a maiden as this by moonlight or daylight. Of excellent china, this 9-inch tall dancing damsel is by the German firm of Galluba and Hofmann. She is beautifully modeled, from her slender arms curving out from her slim, yet shapely, body to the whirling swirl of her skirts. Although this figurine is only incised inside base with "5603," I have seen other examples with Gallup's crowned shield mark.  

 

French Flirt

At first glance this big-eyed bathing belle appears to be another of the wide variety of chalkware or composition "beach dolls" which became so popular beginning in the late 1910s, such as the Splash Me dolls of Genevieve Pfeffer or the carnival cuties offered by S.K. Novelty Company. However, this googly-eyed coquette is made of excellent china. She wears her original, if somewhat disheveled, black wig (a windy day at the seaside no doubt) and is a sizable 8 inches tall. Beautifully hand painted, this little lass was not intended to be an inexpensive prize at some carnival concession. 

Underneath she carries the mark of Union Céramique, a porcelain factory founded in Limoges, France in 1908. The company closed in 1938.

 

Another Tiny Treasure from William Goebel

This china cutie in a canoe is another diminutive bathing belle by William Goebel, the shallow boat-shaped bowl suitable for holding rings or small trinkets.  Goebel created a series of these Lilliputian lasses, either adorning utilitarian trinket dishes or pincushion tops or simply as itty-bitty bathing beauties. The miniature maiden is a mere 1.5 inches tall and the dish is 4.5 inches long. 

Goebel may have liked small bathers, but it was big on markings. Underneath the dish carries the Goebel crowned "G" and "W," both incised and in blue.  It is further incised "RF 666" (this dainty dish, posted previously on this blog, also has a 600 number) and "Dep," as well as being stamped in black "Germany." There is also a red freehand "W."  

 

Dressel Kister Sisters

Although unmarked, this china charmer is a documented model from Dressel, Kister, and Company.     Of beautiful glowing pale porcelain, with soft blushing on her hands, elbows, cheeks, breasts, and knees, this 7-inch long languorous lady is molded in a sitting position.  

She has the striated grey eyebrows and large languid brown eyes so often found on Dressel damsels, but instead of the typical molded grey tresses, a wig of mohair curls covers her bald solid pate. 

Here is the identical wasp-waisted model, but with the grey molded hair incongruously found on so many of Dressel's nubile nymphs.

Like her eyebrows, her tresses are streaked to give the illusion of separated strands of hair.  Her blue-grey eyes have sultry shadowing underneath.

Here is the molded-hair version pictured in the company's 1911 catalogue.  She apparently came perched on her personal pedestal.

Playing Doctor

This lounging lady is of ivory and hales from China.  Such reclining nude carvings are called "doctor's dolls," based on claims that in ancient China a proper woman would not allow a doctor to physically examine her and would instead point out the ailing area on an ivory figurine of a nude woman.  Some experts challenge the truth of this tale, arguing that these carvings were erotic in nature and never intended to be used for diagnosis.  Whether these carvings were meant for therapeutic or titillation purposes, they were popular from the 1800s through the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) ban on the ivory trade in 1989.  Many were produced just for the tourist trade; when I visited China and Hong Kong in 1988, I saw scads of these scantily clad ladies in shop windows seeking to tantalize tourists and their dollars.  Most of these so-called doctor's dolls strike a standard pose, the lady lying on her side, leaning on one elbow, the other hand cupping a breast or modestly covering her crotch, with tiny bound feet clad in pointed slippers.  The carving varies from exquisite to mediocre and it is not uncommon to find a piece has been artificially aged by staining or heating to produce "age cracks."  This ivory belle appears to be an older piece and is more unusual as she is lying on her back and has dainty bare feet.  The carving is quite good, even indicating some structure to her abdomen, as well as details such as her flowing hair and her flower.  

Her lacquer stand was carved especially for her, with indentations conforming to her curves.  Unfortunately, years ago it appears that someone tried to secure her to her stand with tape and the remnants of the adhesive have eaten into the finish.  

On the Ball

This nubile nude leaning against a big bright beach ball is unmarked, but has the amber painted eyes with sultry gray shadowing typical of bathing beauties and half dolls of the German firm of Fasold and Stauch.  Of excellent china, this belle of the ball is 5.5 inches long. 

A close up of her face, showing the typical Fasold eyes.

Dog Days

In Austin, we are now into the dog days of summer, those long days of simmering searing heat. The term comes from the early Greeks, who noted that beginning in late July Sirius, the dog star (because this bright star was the "nose" of the constellation Canis Major) appeared to rise before the sun, heralding the hottest season of the year.  However, summer heat has not slowed down this pair of  playful pups, each engaged in tugging off one of the stockings of his mirthful mistress.  These figurines are fairings, small inexpensive bisque or china pieces often given as prizes or sold as souvenirs at fairs from the mid-1800s through the early 1900s.  Made in Germany, many fairings carry a caption; here each fairing features the motto "Lucky Dog."  There is a bit of a double entendre here, as "dog" could also be slang for a chap or chum.  And indeed any man allowed the privilege of stripping a stocking from such a lovely leg would consider himself a lucky dog indeed!

Of good china, and nicely decorated and detailed for this type of inexpensive novelty, this coquette and her canine companion is 4 inches long and 5 inches high.  It is marked only with a freehand black “63” inside the base.

This bisque version is 4 inches tall and is stamped "Made in Germany" in black underneath.  Of good bisque, the painting is bright and gaudy with gilt, but somewhat slapdash and hasty, typical for many fairings.

Snake Charmer

 He's a cold-hearted snake 

Look into his eyes 

Oh oh oh 

He's been tellin' lies 

He's a lover boy at play 

He don't play by the rules 

Oh oh oh 

Girl don't play the fool--no

Paula Abdul and Elliot Wolfe, 1989

This slinky serpent is either charming, or is being charmed by, the lithe and lovely lady curled up on his coils.  A very unusual creation by Galluba and Hofmann, this 4.25 inch tall  and 4.5 inch wide china figurine is stamped underneath in green with the company's intertwined “G” and “H” inside a crowned shield and incised “40.”  The encircling snake forms a shallow dish, perhaps for holding powder or trinkets (or maybe an apple?).

As they stare into each other's eyes, one wonders who is hypnotizing whom.

A back view of the this lissome lass and her elongated lover.

Dressed from Head to Toe . . . .

but with nothing in-between, this long-legged lass is from the German firm of Fasold and Stauch.  Of excellent china and 9 inches tall, she sweetly smiles with confidence, knowing that the right accessories are all you need to make a fashion statement.  Perhaps at one point she wore a dress of real fabric and lace, but with such a stunning hat (and figure!), who needs clothes?

Although marked only with a freehand “11” in black under her base, this flirtatious fashionista flashes the typical elongated amber eyes with grey shading attributed to Fasold.

Her torso fits down onto slots at the tops of the legs and is held in place with plaster. This allowed Fasold to use the same lithe limbs for a variety of figurines, without having to create an entirely new mold. For example, this be-gloved lovely, part of an auction by Theriault's, has been found on the same shapely legs.

Or a powder dish could be added, to hold an elegant half doll powder puff, as shown by this example, also from the same Theriault's auction.

Sara La Baigneuse

This nubile nude is a real swinger. In the Victorian home, every possible inch was decorated, including airspace. Bisque and china figurines were made to hang from oil lamps and chandeliers, fan and shade pulls, hanging baskets, or hooks in front of windows. Most of these figurines were both relatively small and innocent, typically cherubic children sitting on a swing. This big bare beauty is extraordinary not only because of the sensual subject, but her size; at 9 inches high and 4.25 inches wide, she is as large as she is lovely.  Of the finest china and decoration, she is superbly sculpted from her tumbled blonde tresses to her delicate bare feet. Her face is that of a Grecian goddess and her full-figured form is exposed in all its voluptuous pulchritude. 

This luscious lady also may have a literary allusion. She appears to have been inspired by the 1838 painting “Sara La Baigneuse” (Sara the Bather) by French painter Alexandre-Marie Colin (1798-1875), which now hangs in the Musée Rolin in France. In turn, Colin was inspired by Victor Hugo’s 1828 poem, “Zara the Bather,” 

In a swinging hammock lying, 

Lightly flying, 

Zara, lovely indolent, 

O'er a fountain's crystal wave

There to lave

Her young beauty. . . . 

A close up of her delicately painted face. Considering the size and weight of this swinger and her previous perilous life perched high in the air, I suspect that not many of Sara's sisters have survived to the present day!

Pretty in Pink

Although only 2.25 inches tall, this china full-figure bathing beauty pincushion doll displays amazing detail, from her delicately painted features to the fact that her graceful arms and shapely legs are free from her body. There are no marks, but William Goebel did use this type of unusual domed base for some of its pincushion ladies.