DOLL FACE

bisque doll. “Walter” is dressed in his original knitted ecru cotton singlet and navy woollen cape. He is now set to make £12,000-£17,000 when he goes under the hammer at Vectis auctioneers in ornaby this month. e soughtafter doll was modelled on an 1898 sculpture of a boy by the German artist Professor Arthur Lewin-Funcke (18661937) and, at 56cm (22in) tall, is in one of the rarer sizes.

Munich art dolls

e Walter doll was based on a new genre of artist dolls which made their appearance in Germany in 1908.

ese were the ‘Munich art dolls’ so lifelike that amazed newspapers of the time said they were: “Not dolls. ey should be called real children.” e dolls had came into existence after the manager of the Hermann Tietz department store in Munich hit upon the idea that a doll-designing competition might spark customers’ interest and encourage more sales. eir apperance heralded a ve-year period of manufacture and an era known as a golden age of doll making. Buying dolls became a passion for adults, rather than children. But the purple patch was to be short-lived. In 1914, the dolls disappeared almost overnight. War and rampant in ation had resulted in the production of poorer-quality, less intricate, expressionless baby dolls which proved to be less popular, with some doll heads even being smashed when they couldn’t be sold.

One stipulation was that all the dolls entered had to resemble realistic street urchins. It was a sea change from the idealised beautiful faces typical of French makers, or the stylised dolly-face dolls that had been in fashion prior to this date.

Under the direction of Marion Kaulitz and her Munich Art Studio, a group of dolls known as the ‘Munich art dolls’ was entered into the competition. e dolls did not have bisque heads and were modelled on real children with heads developed in plaster and cast in hard composition. eir features were hand painted in heavy oil paints by accomplished artists and dressed by Lilian Frobenius and Alice Hagermann.

Kämmer & Reinhardt

e Munich art dolls quickly established the market for dolls as playthings and kickstarted the German character doll movement. One of the rst to take up the mantle was the bisque doll maker Kämmer & Reinhardt who seized the opportunity to make new sales.

It was only by chance, while clearing out her mother’s home that the doll’s vendor decided to keep it. She said: “It had belonged to my grandmother and I remember him living in the sitting room for years. It even endured our late dog chewing his foot o when he was a puppy.”

Having seen better days the doll had been destined for the skip. e vendor continued: “My husband remembered the doll fondly and decided to put him in the “to keep” pile.” Little did either know what had been destined for land- ll was, in fact, a rare German

Kämmer & Reinhardt was founded by the young businessman Ernst Kämmer and the modeller Franz Reinhardt in 1886 in Waltershausen in the central German region of üringia. e area is renowned for the high quality of its natural clay deposits which allowed the company to produce the nest quality bisque dolls.

From 1886 to 1909, Kämmer & Reinhardt made only doll-faced models with a bisque head on a composition ball-jointed body, often with an open mouth and teeth. While the company designed the dolls, creating the 100 series, the heads were manufactured by Simon & Halbig (which is why heads bear both marks) and Heinrich Handwerck made most of the composition bodies. e dolls were later assembled by Kämmer & Reinhardt and marketed under its name.

Laughing baby

To capitalise on the success of the Munich art dolls, Kämmer & Reinhardt commissioned Professor LewinFuncke to create a bronze mould of a six-month baby in the style of the new aesthetic. e character baby head he produced, known as the “laughing” baby became the rst in the company’s 100 series – a range of lifelike bisque dolls, considered by many collectors to represent the pinnacle of German doll making.

ere are only two known examples of the bust existing in bronze; one of which is on permanent display in the Rothenburg Doll Museum.

Kämmer & Reinhardt’s use of bisque also enhanced the realistic appearance of the character doll, deemed far superior to that of the company’s competitors Kathe Kruse and Marion Kaulitz (who went on to issue a law suit against the rm).

e model 100 mould was the most widely manufactured and popular doll in the series, so it is not surprising how commonly they appear in today’s market, with the painted-eye version in Caucasian skin colouring being the most commonly-found model. As well as the “laughing” baby it is known as the “Kaiser” baby (although there was no link to Kaiser Wilhelm).

Ugly baby

However, in reprints of letters between Franz Reinhardt and Professor Lewin-Funke, Reinhardt made it clear that he, and many of his customers, found the model to be less

Above left Kämmer & Reinhardt, bisque character doll, German, c. 1909, impressed K * R, 100 36, height 36cm (14in), it sold for £168

Above right e unusual bisque character doll with a pierced ear, set an auction record when it sold for £242,500, image courtesy of Bonhams

Right Walter is dressed in his original shirt

Below He is based on an 1898 sculpture of a boy by the German artist Arthur Lewin-Funcke

Recordbreaking Doll

A doll from the same series holds the world record price for a bisque doll at auction. The Kämmer & Reinhardt 108 character doll sold for £242,500 at Bonhams in 2012. Also designed by the same artist, LewinFuncke, there are no other known examples of this doll. The doll has unique pierced ears and is thought to be from an experimental mould.

a “laughing” and more of an ugly baby. In response to the criticism, it is believed that Lewin-Funcke went on to sculpt a second baby in 1911, based on his own son, Andreas, which went on to become mould 116 in the series. Interestingly for collectors, the name of Lewin-Funcke as the doll’s designer was only revealed in the 1980s as the professor had tried to keep his identity a secret (vowing to take the secret to his grave) for fear his reputation as a serous artist would be dented if it came to light.

His approach appears to have worked as he did go on to achieve recognition as a serious artist with works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and the National Gallery in Berlin.

Expansion of the range

Despite the criticism of the laughing baby model, LewinFuncke went on to create original moulds for most of the other dolls in Kämmer & Reinhardt’s 100 series.

Having four children he had plenty of ready models for his doll sculpts. Next in the series, and modelled as a portrait of his oldest daughter, Karin, at the age of two or three, is the immensely popular model 101, which is known as “Marie” when dressed as a girl and as “Peter” as a boy.

e model 101 was also introduced in 1909 and, like the 102, is said to resemble a serene and thoughtful child. e doll can be found with either painted or glass eyes, in brown bisque as well as Caucasian, and in various sizes from seven to 20in. e glass-eyed versions of the dolls in

Right Kämmer & Reinhardt Marie, bisque character doll, c. 1909, German, impressed K * R, 101 39, wearing her original Black Forest style provincial costume, 38cm (15in) tall sold for £1,680

Below left Kämmer & Reinhardt/Simon & Halbig Gretchen bisque character doll, German, c, 1909, impressed K * R, 114, 57, height 54cm (14in) sold for £1,920 this series are rarer and more costly today, just as they were when originally manufactured. e brown bisque “Marie” with glass eyes is the rarest of all the 101 models and almost never found.

Walter model 102

Model 102 depicts a slightly older child than the 101 model and is known as “Walter”. It is distinctive for its great moulded and painted hair and only comes in 12in (30cm) and 56cm (22in) sizes - the model in this month’s sale. Walter has an oval-shaped face, deeply-sculpted, tousled blonde hair; painted light blue eyes; black upper eyeliner and full lips in a closed mouth.

e later model 107 uses the exact same sculpt as the 102 but has a wig instead of the moulded hair and is known as “Carl”. Model 107 also only comes in the two sizes and only with painted eyes. Like the Walter, Carl is also based on Lewin-Funcke’s 1898 bust, aptly entitled Portrait of a Boy e use of painted eyes on the 100 series was an idea taken from the models designed by Marion Kaulitz (which might explain the legal action). e use of single stroke eyebrows with no painted lashes was also similar to the nish on the original art character dolls. e doll goes under the hammer at Vectis doll and toy sale in ornaby in Stockton-on-Tees in North Yorkshire on June 6, for more details go to www.vectis.co.uk