No. 28

Elisa / Marie Louise (Parian)

Antique Parian Reproduction

Details

Artist

Lynn Harrison

Mold

Seeley's (accompanying worksheet: Marie Louise, S628, 46 cm shoulder head)

Original

Alt, Beck & Gottschalck (Germany), c. 1865-1875 (per worksheet)

About this doll

A parian doll in a pink satin gown with a black lace shawl, her grey molded hair dressed with a pink ornament. The neck and shoulders left in plain white porcelain give her the classical air typical of parians. Lynn Harrison made her from a Seeley's mold.

The doll came with a Seeley's 'Dollmaker's Worksheet' for the parian 'Marie Louise'. According to the worksheet, the original is a rare parian lady attributed to Alt, Beck & Gottschalck of Germany, with an elaborate 1860s evening coiffure adorned with a white plume, gold beads and a comb, and best dressed for a ball of about 1865-1875.

Background

A Seeley's Dollmaker's Worksheet accompanies each mold with the history and characteristics of the original doll, the body and costume pattern numbers to use, and painting notes, so that the maker can produce a faithful reproduction. Seeley's parian molds include, besides Marie Louise (S628), several named after nineteenth-century European ladies such as Sisi, Lady Stanhope and Queen Louise of Prussia.

Alt, Beck & Gottschalck was a porcelain factory founded in 1854 in Nauendorf, Thuringia. Starting with lady shoulder heads in the 1860s, it became one of the leading makers of parian and china heads, adding more elaborate curls and ornaments in the 1870s.

For questions about this doll, please send us a message on Instagram.