We are an authorized, direct-from-the-publisher retailer of NEW books. Our titles are ON HAND and available for immediate shipping. Did children always play with dolls? Did all children own dolls? Is it only children that play with dolls? Theriault's offers clues to these tantalizing questions in a delightful auction on Sunday, July 9, 2006 that teasingly word-plays on the courtly theme, while offering a plentitude of dolls that are fit for a princess. There are the exceptionally rare pair of dolls actually from the 18th century French court whose purpose was not child's play, but a manner for aristocrats to theatrically spread the latest gossip without really naming names, from the private collection of the late esteemed Parisian antiquarian Claude Detave. There are the grand wooden dolls of the English court from the collection of the American early collector, Madeline Merrill, and documented in her book The Art of Dolls. There is an exceptional 26 wooden Grodnertal doll, also from the Merrill Collection, that surely once belonged in the play room of a young German or Austrian duchess, and other early wooden and paper mache dolls whose grand size, rare style, or extensive trousseau surely suggests their early home in a grand court. These are only a few of the exceptional dolls found within this beautiful full-color catalog.
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