Don't miss "A Child’s Eye View" exhibit at Williamsburg if you're nearby during the holidays

My husband and I had the pleasure of visiting Williamsburg for a day some years ago and since then I have supported the work of the Williamsburg Foundation in preserving history and creating learning opportunities for all ages. So, I receive email updates each month and the update for this month mentioned that Williamsburg is hosting a marvelous exhibit of historical dolls and toys at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum. You enter the museum through the Public Hospital of 1773.

What a doll. She's a tall, slender beauty with flowing tresses and shining eyes and a Mona Lisa smile. She's got it all: gently arching eyebrows, shapely legs, petite fingers and feet. And what a wardrobe—a lace-trimmed dress of watered silk, a satin petticoat, two white undercoats, whalebone stays at her tapered waist, fancy silk socks inside brocaded shoes, and a robe in rainbow hues with sleeves turned back for a flirty glimpse of forearms. A doll indeed. She's carved of wood with a face of gesso and languid eyes of glass that would steal Ken from Barbie any day.

Not to be catty, but Barbie is, after all, in her fifties—all the more galling to lose a boyfriend to a rival in her 200s. Barbies by the thousands stare through plastic on the crowded shelves of today's cacophonous super toy stores. Her colonial counterparts may have sat among the bonnets and purses on a shelf of the millinery shop in Williamsburg, whose proprietor, Margaret Hunter, advertised "a variety of Toys, dressed and undressed Babies, Green Silk Purses etc." in the Virginia Gazette of October 15, 1772. Lucky was the little girl—and well-heeled her family, no doubt—who was given this stylish lady as a toy.

[Left - Bewigged and begowned in lace and embroidered silk, this doll, now in Colonial Williamsburg's collections, must have been the treasure of some eighteenth-century girl. Photo by Hans Lorenz.]

The Williamsburg website has a wealth of slides shows, videos and podcasts about their living museum, costumes of the period, daily life in Colonial America, and politics of the Revolutionary Period. I particularly enjoyed their interactive slide show on colonial fashion. It includes a range of clothing from elaborate silk gowns of the wealthy elite to the rather risque attire of a bar maid (or prostitute I wasn't quite sure - she looked very much like a 21st century teen decked out in Gothic dress complete with black lipstick)

Technorati Tags: Williamsburg, colonial America, Virginia, dolls, toys, historical, museum, exhibit,

"300" sparks new figure releases.

I received an alert from Ebay today about this fantastic OOAK doll of Gerard Butler as King Leonidas as he appeared in the newly released film "300". This California doll artist, using the name Viktoryia, has produced a truly remarkable repaint of an original long-haired Ken doll. She states in her auction description:

"All my dolls are limited to one edition WORLDWIDE.The costume is very time consuming and detailed, as the pictures show. The doll got the full facial repaint and body shades.

You can see the picture of the original Ken. He's got full repaint, his hair was died black, braided, then he's got a haircut (Greek style). I applied black hair to create a beard and mustache. He has a braid on the back, the mouth was resculpted. He also has a braided hair band around his head. I sculpted and painted his breasts then shaded his body.

There were used combinations of materials to create the Greek warrior-king such as genuine leather, foam, aluminum, wood, plastic, stone, hair, fabric. His boots (leather), his hand bands (leather+aluminum), pants (leather), scabbard (leather) are hand sewed.

King Leonidas comes with a spear (plastic+aliminum), a shield (composition), a helmet which I carved using a combination of materials (foam, aliminum and plastic), a sword with a scabbard. The sword was cut to look as a miniature replica of the sword from the movie."

As a one-of-a-kind, however, he is bringing a hefty price. As of today the bid is $399 plus shipping. The doll artist's Ebay ID is divine-dolls-creation.

I see Ignite Figures is also preparing to release two Spartan figures, Leonidas and a Spartan Hoplite. Ignite Figures retail for $79.99. I see they also have Roman Murmillo and Retiarius gladiators on their prerelease list as well.