Doll Purchases Review 12

eBay purchases from 6-25-2022 to 12-27-2022

These are the last four eBay doll-related purchases for 2022. 

An I. Roberta Bell portrait doll of the artist's grandmother was won on June 25, 2022.

I've been fascinated by the hand-sculpted dolls of I. Roberta Bell for several years. She was the first Black doll artist elected as a member to the National Institute of American Doll Artists (NIADA). Bell began making dolls during the 1940s using premade. During the late 1960s, she began sculpting her own molds that chiefly were portraits of African American historical figures. This Bell doll is a portrait of Annie Davis Frierson, the artist's grandmother; it is believed to be a one-of-a-kind tribute. Hand-sculpted of porcelain for the head and hands, it has a straw-stuffed brown silk body and is dressed in a cameo-accessorized white-eyelet-trimmed collared black taffeta full-length dress, a white eyelet-trimmed half-slip, white full-length eyelet-trimmed pantalettes, black stockings, and white faux-suede lace-up ankle boots. A hang tag with Bell's grandmother's interesting bio is attached to the doll's left hand.

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Nila by Janci arrived on June 29, 2022.

Dolls made from unusual mediums appeal to me. Nila is a 14-inch doll with a head, lower arms, and lower legs of carved wood. The body and upper arms and legs are brown doe-suede. I had long desired a Janci doll and finally this one was made available. A poster of the doll published by Scott Publications in the June/July issue of Contemporary Doll Collector magazine accompanied the doll. Janci dolls were made by Jill Sanders and Nancy Elliott. The name Janci uses letters from both artists' names. Black Janci dolls rarely surface, but one recently sold on eBay. (I like my doll better, however.) 

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Classic Susi by Estrella arrived on August 17, 2022.

I enjoy collecting dolls that represent the 1960s and 1970s. A 2022 reproduction of Estrela's 1974 Susi, made for the Spain market, was offered on eBay. The original Susi dolls were Estrela's answer to Ideal's 1960s Tammy.  A link to a blog post about Susi and a link to the museum installation is under the Related Links heading at the end of this post.

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A sealed Lah-ti-da Paperdoll Playhouse arrived on December 30, 2022.

In addition to dolls, I collect black paper dolls. The Lah-ti-da paper doll is fashioned after a real person who was a child during the 1940s. It includes a 9-inch paper doll and stand, a reading story, six clothes in color, two clothes to color, a house front, one living room, two easy-to-bake recipes, and six paper toys to cut out. (After winning this auction, a patron of DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum, donated an unsealed but mint Lah-ti-da paper doll. This allowed me to include pictures of the unsealed doll in the museum installation without opening the one I purchased.)

Related Links

Bertabel and Janci Dolls

Annie Davis Frierson's museum installation

Life Began for Her at 65, I. Roberta Bell, Part 1 of 3

Nila's museum installation

Estrela's Classic Susi

Classic Susi's museum installation

Lah-ti-da's museum installation

Links to Previous Posts in This Series About Past eBay Doll Purchases
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Post 11

©Black Doll Collecting/dbg

There are countless items to collect and write about. Black dolls chose me.

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