Twelve Years Ago This Week

The lovely Matoka by Annette Himstedt represents a girl from Somalia.

On July 18, 2017, I received an email from an image hosting service that contained a link to photos taken and stored at their site 12 years ago this week.  The photos were taken between July 19 through July 28, 2005, after Matoka, by Annette Himstedt arrived.

Part of the artist's 2005 Kinder Collection, Matoka was a must-have for me and was preordered from a doll dealer immediately after seeing the prototype doll's image. To this day, she remains my favorite doll by the artist.  At the time she arrived, I was writing my second book, wherein she is featured on page 264 with the following image, description.  The 2008-assessed value is not blotted out.

Matoka, Himstedt Kinder Collection, 2005

Material: Vinyl head, arms, legs (multiple rotational joints); doe suede body
Height: 33-1/2in/85.09cm
Marks: D3/8 Annette Himstedt© (on head), D3/2 Annette Himstedt© (on lower back), D3/3 Annette Himstedt© (on back of upper right arm), D3/4 Annette Himstedt© (on back of upper left arm), D3/5 Annette Himstedt© (on back of upper right leg), D3/6 Annette Himstedt© (on back of upper left leg)
Hair/Eyes/Mouth: Light brown curly human-hair wig/mouth-blown brown stationary/closed
Clothing: Yellow, coral, and light green dress, brown leather sandals; colorful ribbons in hair, rope necklace with authentic hand-made clay and glass gems from Africa
Other: Matoka’s native country is Somalia. She is a LE of 377, has COA.
Value: xxxxx (This image is the only one in this post that was not stored at the image hosting site.)

Because I have been busy with non-doll-related things with very little time to post here, I decided to watermark the images from the hosting site for this quick post.  Hopefully I will be back soon, but in the meantime, enjoy "meeting" Matoka and/or viewing her initial photos.

After Matoka arrived, before redressing took place, she was photographed in her original clothes.

She has such a gorgeous face and beautiful brown eyes.

I enjoyed and still enjoy photographing her.

She was introduced to the doll family...

...where she blended in quite nicely among other Himstedts, Heaths, and other artist
and non-artist dolls.

A few days after meeting the family, she underwent her initial redresses, which are shown next:

After a great-niece outgrew this size 2T floral-print dress, it was handed down to my dolls.  
It fits Matoka perfectly!

She wears the floral-print dress with a pair of child size-5 white sandals.

This child's pants set and the next one Matoka models were purchased for larger dolls like Matoka.

The strappy sandals are a perfect match for this orange/yellow/white plaid outfit.

Throughout her 12 years here, I have taken many more photos of Matoka, and because I still enjoy redressing her from time to time, photographing her will continue.

I hope to be back to this blog soon.


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