Antique Mechanical Dolls, Automata Dolls 1850+
Antique mechanical dolls are referenced as early as the mid 17th century with the golden years being roughly 1850 to the early 1900s. Antique automata dolls or mechanical dolls, are dolls that moved, usually through a clock work like mechanism and made by Americans, French and Germans.
Some types of mechanical dolls are: Automatrons dolls that played a musical instrument, Animated dolls, Autoperipatetikos dolls, Cymbaler dolls, Gigoteur dolls that cry, kick, walk or talk.
Musical Marottes a doll head on a stick atop a music box, Ondines swimming dolls. Dolls with Pull Toys, Phonograph dolls, Creeping, Walking, Talking, Kiss throwing dolls and Waltzing dolls, are some of the early movable, magical and innovative dolls that have amused adults and children.
1862 The patent Autoperipatetikos or Walking doll
by Enoch Rice Morrison, 9 1/2-10″ tall
She has a cloth, papier mâche, China or untinted bisque head with painted facial features and walks by a key wound, clock work mechanism.
Doll marked on base: Patented July 15th, 1862: also, in England or Patented July 15th, 1862: also, in Europe, 20 Dec. 1862. Distributed by Daniel S. Cohen and Joseph Lyon & Co. of New York City, Martin & Runyon of London, plus others.
1772 Android – Automata doll,
La Joueuse de Tympanon – The Dulcimer Player
Created in 1772 by Pierre Kintzing a watch maker and David Roentgen a cabinet maker. Purchased by Queen Marie Antoinette of France in 1785, restored in 1864 by Jean Eugene Roubert-Houdin and now resides in the Musée des Arts et Métiers. Video courtesy of You Tube
Additional Doll Makers of Antique to Vintage Mechanical Dolls not shown
Automata Mechanical Doll makers or suppliers of bisque doll heads;
Adolf Ascher, Althof Bergmann Co, Dehais, Fischer, Naumann & Company, Fleischmann & Bloedel (or Blödel), Adolph Fleischmann & Cramer, Arthur Heinze, I M Helvetic Corp. also called H & M Corp, Gebrüder Heubach, Ives, Blakeslee & Co, Pierre Jaquet-Droz, Kestner, Lambert & Bourgeois, Henri Maillardet, Elie Martin inventor of the swimming doll Ondines, Ferdinand Martin dolls, Jean-Marie & Edouard Henri Phalibois, Porzellanfabrik Rauenstein, Louis-Marie Renou, Friedrich Adolph Richter, Charles Rossignol, Roullet et Decamps, Jean Rousselot, Schoenau & Hoffmeister, SFBJ, Alfred Schroeder, Max Schudze, Simon & Halbig, Alexandre Nicholas Théroude, Gustav Vichy, Ungarische, VanHollbeke, Jaques de Vaucanson, plus others. Doll heads will be marked by the bisque head doll maker, other marks maybe on the key, the mechanical device or have a paper label from the doll maker or store that sold the doll.
Animated dolls Adolf Zinner or Gottlieb Zinner Cymbaler dolls made by Simpson-Crawford Co.
Musical dolls Heinrich Schelhorn dolls that sound like a xylophone, William A. Webber, The Webber Doll, Zeuch & Lausmann.
Phonograph Dolls; Max Oscar Arnold, Madame Hendren Dolly Record, Emile Berliner gramophone talking dolls, Thomas A. Edison phonograph doll, Giebeler-Falk Doll Corp Primadonna a phonograph doll, Jenny Lind Doll Company phonograph doll, Bébé Phonographe Jumeau, Metal Devices Corp. phonograph doll, JL Schilling talking doll; patent by Jesse J. Warner & Son a wind-up talking phonograph doll.
Clauderies (a swaying doll), Creeping, Crawling, Dancing, Singing, Talking, Walking dolls;
American Toy Co, Babs Manufacturing or Harry S. Coleman, Bahr & Proschild, Robert Clay or George Clark, L Cohen & Son, Fleischmann & Bloedel, William Farr Goodwin, Ferdinand Imhoff (wind up doll bodies), Irwin & Company, Japan, Kammer & Reinhardt, Ernst Paul Lehmann dancing doll mark Engl patent, Limoges, Johannes Maelzel, Armand Marseille, Louis Marx, Francis Pelobet walking dolls, Rabery & Delphieu, Schoen & Yondorf sayco, Franz Schmidt, Schoenhut, Johann Siedar, Simon & Halbig, Steevan’s, Transogram, UNIS, Wood Toy, Bernard Zehner, Bébé Gigoteur dolls made by Jules Nicholas Steiner, plus others.
Swimming dolls also known as Ondines dolls. Mechanical music boxes used in dolls by Thorens 1883+ of Switzerland
