The Brown Bomber Joe Louis

I am now the very proud owner of a one-of-a-kind papier-maché portrait doll of Joe Louis by Bernard Ravca made during the 1940s. The doll's previous owner decided to part with it after owning it for 20 years. When I saw the for sale listing, I acted swiftly. 

I had longed to install this remarkable doll in DeeBeeGee's Virtual Black Doll Museum for documentation purposes and had asked the prior owner if she would share photos of the doll with me. She agreed, but the opportunity for her to do that never arose. Now that I am the new owner, I have photographed the doll in its arrival state and installed it in the virtual museum.

After the initial photos for the museum installation were taken, I performed some minor cosmetic work on this remarkable piece to stabilize it in areas where the papier-maché had weakened. I also touched up some painted areas to even out the color or to replace missing paint. (The ear had been repaired and repainted in the past.) I didn't take before-and-after photos during the stabilization process because I was eager to stabilize it. For this post,  however, I went ahead and took some after photos to compare with the original photos of the areas that needed painting or stabilizing. 

I repainted the ear to better match the overall skin tone.

The papier-maché of one thumb had deteriorated. I stabilized and repainted it.
 

The edge around the sole of one boot had peeled. I stabilized the peeling and flaking areas and repainted both boots.

View the museum installation here to learn more about this beautiful work of doll art.

While researching Joe Louis, the man, and Bernard Ravca, the artist, I stumbled upon an online interview of the previous owner that features the Joe Louis doll. Read it here.

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

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