Summary

National doll produced to represent an Italian woman, it is one of 10 Italian National Dolls collected for Monica Gates by her mother during an overseas trip in the 1970s. These dolls represent various traditions and dress throughout Italy. Women's folk costumes in Italy are comprised of several basic elements: shirt and skirt, apron, head covering either a head scarf, hat or both, stockings and shoes. Colour, ornamentation, fabrics and the style of individual items are used to denote regional differences. This doll is intended to represent a woman from Rome or the surrounding countryside.

The Gates collection contains 170 national dolls from 74 different countries and some correspondence relating to the acquisition of several of the dolls. The costumes of the dolls represent national costumes from the 19th Century to the 1990s. Monica Gates collected or was given these dolls between 1957 and 1990.

These dolls were purchased as souvenirs of particular countries and like many mass produced souvenirs they are often not accurate representations of a particular country or region, and may actually better reflect neighbouring counties or regions. This occurs because costumes are often stylised and simplified resulting dolls wearing generic costume elements which are common to many countries/regions. Often the fabrics and decorations used are selected to make the dolls cheap and easy to manufacture and aesthetically pleasing. This can result in the fabrics, colours and decorations of the doll's clothing having little or no reflection of the costume associated with a particular country or region they are meant to be representative of.

Physical Description

Female doll of formed of plastic body and limbs, and composition head, with painted face, blue eyes looking left. Black hair in bun and covered by felt orange and yellow folded headpiece. Doll wears gold hooped earrings. Costume consists of white shirt with elbow length puffed sleeves, lace at reck and cuffs. Black felt over corset with yellow laung. Red ribbons at arm hole seams and gold trim skirt of orange felt has yellow and blue bands, and is topped by green apron decorated with yellow and gold ribbons and floral braid. Doll wears white felt underpants and stretch knit tights. Yellow felt shoes are pinned and laced to feet. She carries plastic brass look vessel in right hand. Crest shaped beige and gold label is stapled to front centre hem of skirt.

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