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 Venetian woman.

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 with plastic arms, fabric body and legs, composition head with painted face, blue eyes looking to left. Brown hair braided at back and covered with long red shawl with red flower at left ear. Costume consists of white shirt with elbow length puffed sleeves and red bead necklace. Green ribbon at waist of navy floral skirt with green border and yellow and white trim at calf height. Stiffened canvas mesh petticoat and underpants under skirt and flat black plastic shoes on feet. Limbs are jointed. Blue and white cardboard label tied with twine to the left wrist.

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