I can't seem to be able to find any doll that even comes close. It has no markings. Only the head and hands are porcelain. This doll has no bottom, the dress fans out into an umbrella! It's about 24 tall, with loose curly blonde hair, with a tiara. I thought it was an umbrella bottom doll, but can not find any that even come close. Does anyone have an idea who the maker is or the name of the doll?
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Undress the doll to look for markings. If you cant find any, it is probably not worth much
She is quite lovely!
I have always called them umbrella bottom dolls also, so I am guessing that is the colloquial term since I am not really finding it as an official definition. Who knew!
I am relatively new to formal doll identifying, just been admiring, and if I saw something that really tickled my fancy, collecting since I was a child (so MANY years). I say that because I learned at the beginning not to buy for a value, but to buy only what I loved, but that is another story.
So trying to figure out who she is will be a challenge if she has no marks. But it isn't impossible. It will take a lot of work.
You can show her to everyone you know and put her on other doll websites as everyone has their own little niche and someone may recognize her immediately. This one is a little bit of a challenge because there have been millions of dolls made around the world...and finding the right person the first time out is a little like finding a needle in a haystack :(
The second easiest way to start is to go to Google images and type in her description, like the height, hair color, dress style etc. to piece together info.
You can do this same type of search in eBay to learn more by reading posts. DO NOT USE ACTIVE AUCTIONS TO DETERMINE VALUE THOUGH...ONLY SOLD AUCTIONS WILL TELL YOU WHAT SOMEONE WILL ACTUALLY PAY FOR A DOLL WHICH IS VALUE (PRICE).
You can do things like figure out if the hair is human or synthetic by burning a strand:
This YouTube video talks about that.
You can try to see what she is stuffed with (always risky because you don't want to damage), but typically really old dolls were stuffed with things like sawdust or cotton (not modern synthetic materials).
You can try to figure out of the body is porcelain or bisque:
en.wikipedia.org/
A couple of my favorite sites are below that may be useful to you, although some seem to recently have broken links (GRR):
www.thesprucecrafts.com/
antiques.lovetoknow.com/
There are also a list of doll museums that I have been considering putting my my bucket list to call to see if they help with identifications. If one is near you, maybe you could take her for a road trip:
www.thesprucecrafts.com/
I hope this helps get you on the road to identifying!
I always called these Boudoir dolls as my recollection of umbrella dolls always had a "cone" like under the skirt that made the skirt balloon out and the skirts were usually "fluffy".
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