Marie Antoinette's

I had not considered the role of dolls in the 18th century until I received a very welcomed heads up from author Christine Trent who has done her own extensive research on the fascinating subject.  I found her new book, The Queen's Dollmaker, an absolutely delightful read, both due to the plot and all the great information packed between the covers.  From start to finish you will get a glimpse of both the domestic and business cultures of the 18th century.  The book covers the intriguing process of doll-making and follows the main character, Claudette Laurent, as she chooses 'survival' in a very rough world.

My first introduction to Claudette left mixed feelings. I found her easy to relate too, but before getting to know her better she was faced with many challenges and I thought perhaps I cannot relate to her at all! Circumstances arrived so quickly for the young daughter of a shop keeper that I found myself wishing I had the opportunity to know what life was like for Claudette before her world was turned upside down. Fortunately Trent includes small bits of her early life throughout the story, painting a picture of the doll shop as well as the blossoming of a very important romance.

What I like about Claudette is that she is flawed and as I read I kept thinking she was a blond mix between Lizzy Bennet and Scarlett O'Hara.  She makes mistakes but is insistently a strong girl who grows into an equally strong and wiser woman. She is in love, makes friends, and essentially finds a family in a very rough world. But my favorite part: her trade. Claudette grew up in a doll shop her father kept, and he was very, very good. As Claudette makes her way through life we learn about the entire process of constructing these historic creations, from the selection of wood, the carving, painting, designing of garments and even a bit about movable limbs.

Claudette's story takes her to England, but the story shifts to France quite often as we are updated with events unfolding on the continent. I read these parts as 'French moments' because suddenly, between Claudette's tale, you are in France.  These moments occur periodically throughout the story showing the revolution as it affects Marie Antoinette, including little details from Antoinette's daily life at Versailles, her time with friends, and later at the Tuileries Palace in Paris where she lived as a captive. These glimpses into Antoinette's routine would be of interest to anyone with a budding curiosity of the doomed queen.  I was so often deeply involved with Claudette's story I did not want to read an Antoinette update, but Trent does well at providing a great deal of detail in such small parts.  My favorite French moment was when Antoinette took lunch in at her petit Hameau. I felt like I was there, (wouldn't that be wonderful?) among the tall grass and breezy weather, having delicate little fancies with Mrs. B herself.

Trent, Christine. 2010. The queen's dollmaker. New York: Kensington Books. ISBN 9780758238573

Released December 2009, available at

So we know all about the fascinating and complex Marie Antoinette, right? She loved fashion, spent extravagantly, was devoted to her family, and stood bravely in the face of imprisonment and execution. But did you also know she loved dolls?

In the 18th century, dolls were created for two different reasons. First, as you might guess, they were playthings. Such toys might be made of rags, corn husks, or other simple materials. As you can imagine, most of these are lost to the ravages of time.

But if you were wealthy enough, dolls meant something else to you: receiving a doll was akin to sitting in the front row at a fashion show. A tiny replica of whatever the modiste proposed to make for you was placed on the doll. In this way, you could see and touch the fabric up close, although it probably wasn’t the greatest representation of how it would look on a human form.

Dolls of the 18th century were carved of hardwood with their facial features painted on. Nicer dolls might have glass eyes inserted into carved eye sockets. Hair was fashioned into a wig from flax or wool and glued down. Some dolls were fairly rough jobs, others were very meticulously crafted. But for a fashion doll, the emphasis was always on the couture. Marie Antoinette had an entire set of dolls presented to her as a means for selecting her wedding trousseau. Doesn’t that sound fun? I can imagine her as a young teenager, lining them up in a window sill, and deciding which ones pleased her enough that she would want their dresses recreated for her.

Once she’d left her native Austria for France, Marie Antoinette sent dolls to her sister, Maria Carolina, who herself became Queen of Naples. Maria Carolina liked to paint, and in 1760 created a scene of the Austrian royal family. Notice that her sister, Marie Antoinette, is holding up a doll in the painting.

We frequently refer to these wooden dolls of the 18th century as “Queen Anne dolls,” because Queen Anne (Stuart, not Boleyn!) loved them and frequently gave them away as gifts. I was thrilled when I visited Lullingstone Castle in Kent, England, in 2006. They had recently discovered a Queen Anne doll that had been stored in a trunk somewhere in an attic. The doll was in such good shape that you could tell that her dress had been a lovely shade of pink. The owner of the castle gave me a copy of the V&A Museum’s provenance report on the doll, which indicated they believed that the doll may have actually been a gift from Queen Anne to one of the Hart-Dyke family members. If only I had been allowed to photograph the precious doll!

It is interesting to note that the wax, china, and composition dolls that we think of today as “antique” dolls did not come into production until the early 19th century, so Marie Antoinette would have never known anything but wooden dolls. Handcrafted dolls such as the one Marie Antoinette would have owned are very unusual today, but there are still doll artists out there who do this painstaking work. Do you have an old doll that is well loved or very collectible?