Summary

National doll produced to represent Russian women, it was given to Monica Gates, circa 1970s-1980s. This is a matryoshka or babushka doll, a Russian nesting doll, which is a set of wooden dolls of decreasing size placed one inside the other. Traditionally the outer layer is a woman, dressed in a sarafan, a long and shapeless traditional Russian peasant jumper dress. The figures inside may be of either gender; the smallest, innermost doll is typically a baby lathed from a single piece of wood.

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

This doll is made of wood and comprised of a family of five dolls that fit inside each other to form one doll. Each doll is hand painted in a similar way with pink floral decoration on the front, a red body and a smiling face. These dolls stand up on their own and the larger ones break apart in the centre to reveal a smaller doll inside.

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