The Art of Andre Ttruillier

by Jennifer A. H. Kohn

Andr€ Jean Thuillier was not destined from birth to make dolls which one hmdred years after the fact would make .ollsto6 gdp (at thei beauty as wel as at their starding price6.) ln lact, his b€ginnings were humble, md not parti@larly prepocsing: a derk in a shop *lling po(elain khick-knack, he n@thel6s had a shSular eye for beauty that stood him in Sood stead for the r€st of hiB life. A st€p up inlo a porcelain laciory wh€re he w6 able to famili iz hirelf with a wide range of invenl,ory and Monsieur Thuillier was on his way to his life s work. Despite his s€emingly lackluster origins, he mEt have b€en a man with a unique vision for his dolls, as ATs arE among the most beautitul and desiable of a[ French bebs, with pri.6 that demoBtrate ably the laws ofsupply d dernand: whm supply is linubed, deound mkhels up in conrmensurate proportion.

fieie are a number of AT fac6 md bodies, somewhat slrprisin8 Aiven the size of the company: a colGsus like lumeau it was not. What it was, however, was a manufacturer of some of the most remarkabl€ dolls €ver made, at any time, or anywher€. It's not that they did anything special, not for Monsieur Thuillier were the mech.ni€al wonders of lhe ninete€nth century with bebes who could ki€K c.y and oh yes, kiss! No, perhaps the main truth of the matter was that when one is m€rely beautitul, then thatbeauty is and of itself is enough:Most ATs are simply beautiful. (lt.an be argued that the ATs with open mouths with two rows of sharp little t@th.re more s.ary than beautiful, but many collectors love them, as they are $ typi.aloftheir time, and also, no small consideration, th€y

Monsieur Thuillie. is ieferred to as a manufa.ture. listed by himplf as a manufacturer, but in reality, may have be€n an assembler only, buyins f.om Francois Gaultie. and possibly only for a briefpe.iod of fifteen years. No patents for kxlies were appli.d for, in .onkast to some of the heavy activity from other companies, who se€med to have submitted patents daily, so enthusiastic was then output and lastly, his premiles app€ar to have be€n too small lo have mnufa.tured anythin8 lar8er than a thimble. Also, we know frcm the rsords of fG that they did inded sell to Thuillier, but,ust how mu.h of his offerin8 came frorn that fine firm is not known, lost as the information is in the mists of antiquity.-.(Note: this last infomation is from the forthcoming volume lI of

If a rose by any other name is reputed to smell as sw€et, rhen if th€ dolls were made solely by FG, does ir affecr their beaury or their value? tn the author's opinion, no. FCs are finely made dolls, highly collectible and d6iable, but having b@n manufactured in much la.ger quantities than rheir AT counterParts, their prices must necessarily be lower although the look of ihe dolls is not as much lsbeauriful as different.

For different the ATs .re. Therc are other French bebes who ar€ much sought-afte. by colleciors, and some cost even more than the ATs themselves, but while the Hs, rhe A. Marqu€s, rhe dolls of Hen.i Delcroix and others may appeal, none havequite lhe melting softness of the finest AT's expression, wirh lheir uniquely lifeJike physiognomies, although to many oftheir fans, Iumeaux cone clo*...

Whatever the configuration of the firm, it began in 1875, and proceeded rapidly io the top of the heap, meiaphorically sPeakinS. Early to middle period dolls are the most atra.tive, and wh€n found in all-original condiiion, are treasures of lurury so well dressed and pampered,looking were they. lf orher.ompani6 perfeded their dous with rhe passage of time, the reverse was partially true ofATs later dolls are as far from perfection as thei. earlier couterparts are €los€ to ft.

The initial dolls made by the compmy are typical of all firms in that they were a little tentahve, with very soft painrinS and lery pal€ bisque. Kid bodies with bisque hands were the norm, the mo.e graceful hands were made for And re Thuillier by who€ver was s(ulplinS for him, and the chunkier veEion cdme from Francois Caultier's unknown sculptor Some of the dotls had stnky a1l-wood bodi6, whil€ others had liShrer,weighr composition and wood bodies, making ihem very nice to pose. Whatcollectors choose to regard as the mo6t important part of the dolls, mmely, the heads were all formed of prEsed bisque, with its narrow rim at the top of the head, and the shallowest of indcntation where the nose and mouth appear Ears were applied, but are less prominent than th@ oflumeau, for example. wi$ln n n

Simplicityof form was a hallmark of the ATs, wirh whatever basi. body was fashionableat the time, comparable ro other company's dolls, and of the finest quality, but the dolls were anyrhing bur simple in Urerr presentation, bemg top-of-theline Iuihl) anired inhabitantsof the elite world of F.ench doll nakin8.

TheE being relatively littte information available about ATs, one possible way to learn about them is to put them in their nineteenrh .entury artish. context, as all dolls must be designed by a.tist. Mct people, when they think about the art of the ninete€nth century are reminded of the naturalist work of the impressionists, who sought to bring importance to art works of every day liFq .ather than the heEtofore preferred 8.and style of painting and rulpture, with its riSo.ous demands for nobility of subjet.

Products of the Academic tradirion, most nineteenth century s.ulPtors were considered realisls, until the advent of the great Auguste Rodin, a maste, but of fo.m and feeling, .ather than the smooth surfa€e consid€Rd de rigueur by the academic lculptors and their pat ons. For the purpo6es of sculptins dolls, an impressionist was out of the quesrion - childrEn prefer smff th realism, and the roughly textured sculpture created by Rodin would have been unsuihble.

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Far mor. fitt.d to a doll's requnemcnts were lhe works of J.an-Baptiste Carpeaux, wh@ s.ulpted masterpi(es 8ra(e the Paris Opera, or Albe.t-Ernest Carrie.-Belleuse, whom webelieve sculpted for lumcau and who was a.tually Rodin's tea.her and eventual rival. In looking at his works, {l started with the lattea as Caftier-Bclleuse had a huge commercialas wellas a fine art practice, and th.re is confirmation that he did indeed sculpt at least one doll) I began to see a family @mblance betwen some ofhis portrait work, and that of the ATs, with their innocent yet potent sensualit, almost always a sub-text in that more eprs*d cra. A man like Carier-Belleuse who had such a commerciillbent might have thought nothinS ofstulptin8 anonymously for multiple doll compani6, su(h as Jumeau, or even the iiny but elegant firm belonging to Andre Thuilliei As any a.tisi knowt inome is income, whethe. from port.ait commissions, o. from the sale of an easel painting or for sculpting a doll- Even the most suc.essful.rtists cannot usually afford to turn down work ofany kind, l6i the market dry up, emethinS as kue then as it is now.

I de.ided to iest my theory by usinS the doll that is identified with Carier-Belleuse, lhe Long'Face Jumeau, size 1.r (lcallher Vivian) and pairing her with a middle period AT (affectionately known as Lily-Seville) of the same size. t okinS at the two sid. by side, I saw some resemblance, but more importantl, sin(e the pairo.iginated from two different companies, the style of sulptin8 appeared to be the same, with a firm command of te.hnique. Eoth erpe(ly formed, their faces and trcdies were clearly fashioned by. master of his cra ft. (The bodies are almost identical, chunky and childlike, with hands of sliShtly different proportion and conformation, lerdin8 me to believe that CarrierBelleuse sculpted the whole doll: the hands may havc chan8ed with the pasSe of timeand prcvailing fashion, with the la.ger ones beinB earlier than the smaller ones, which had begun to refl (t C€rman competition.)

When an artist is at the beginning of his career, often the work is charachnzed by youthful exuberane and .onfidence, but less skill than in later years. By the time that Ca dier8elleuse created rhe tanS-Fa.e,umeau he had.lF.dy exe(uted major commissions, had worked for Wedgwood Porcelain in England, revitalized Sevr€s Porcelain in France, and was extraordinarily facile in his ability to transmit from idea to a.tual pie.e his intentions. Perhaps no other a.tist of that amazin8ly f{und time was as prolifi., or as able to metamorphose frcm fine to dtrorative art in the blink of an eye. Particularly notable are his po.trait sculptures, one of Mlle. SophieCrcizette, star of the ComedieFrmcai*, with a fa.e startlinSly like ihat of the AT, while anothea Mlle. Simone Boucheron, a child, €ombines the features of the Long-Face and the AT, and points to Carier' B€lleuse as the designer ofboth dolls.

Did he s(ulpt any other ATs? Initially,l wasn'tat all sure of thai fact, as the early dolls have their own beauty and charm, but their modeling is more delicate, and lacks the darhg flair so apparent in later dolls. Also, the painting of th€ early dolls is less dramati., and Rms to take its influen e f.om €arlier nineteenih century techniques. It is thebravura sculpting of the middle period face that lays claim to the nolion that th€ astonishingly .reative CanieFBelleuse, who tumed his hand from everythinS tuom makin8 iewelry to dolls, and some of the finesr of ffne art of his time, was the man behind that model of AL However a chance compari$n ofan early, middleand late psiod doll, .ourtesy of the generosity of Florence Thenault, made me (hange my thinkin8 to con lude that oll the dolls wer€ sculpted by the artist, as the visual relahonship between the thrce, lying on a table toSether was ovetuhelming. I su+'e€t that Carrier-Belleuse created the fi.st doll, and then may have retumed to sharpen and intensify that beautiful head to refled prevailing whims. When then compared with a Carrier-Belleus€, the evidence was Aidft Thtillier to ti' tcdonNg.58

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