Summary

National doll produced to represent a Dutch woman. It was given to Monica Gates circa1970s-1980s. The costume of this doll is typical of women's folk dress in the Netherlands which generally consists of a long skirt, blouse, an apron, perhaps a shawl, some form of headwear either a hat or head scarf and wooden clogs. Regional differences are shown through the use of various colours, embroidery and the type of headwear.

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

The girl wears a flannel skirt with white, red, green, blue, yellow stripes. Over the skirt she wears a black blouse (short sleeves) and a black apron. The apron has a colour- full pattern (cream, yellow, red, black). At the neck, the blouse has a square from the same material (back and front). A border trimming is used around the neckline (red, white, blue) and the waistline. The pattern are flowers and leaves. The girl has a red choker with a golden pearl in the middle. Her head is covered with a wing bonnet. Around the front is a crochet trimming and under- neath are a few, blonde hairs. Under the skirt, the doll wears black briefs. Her shoes are wooden clocks.

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