Bartenstein or Bergner Multi-Face Dolls German
Fritz Bartenstein an inventor and doll factory owner (1880-1905) was first employed in the doll industry at the Schoenau Porcelain doll factory. By 1880 he filed his first patent for a multi-faced doll with a pull string inside the head that turned the faces housed inside a hood and a second string inside the torso that simultaneously made the doll cry Mama, as shown in the two patent drawings on left.
The antique doll socket heads are made of wax, composition or bisque with two doll faces laughing and two faces crying, either as a black doll or white doll or a white face and black face in one doll head.
In 1882 Bartenstein won a lawsuit against Peter Schelhorn, a Täuflinge doll maker in Sonneberg selling multi-face socket head dolls without the inventors approval.
The other well known German doll maker of multi face dolls is Carl Bergner shown below.
Fritz Bartenstein Dolls and Mark Identified
Fritz Bartenstein Doll Mold Numbers Identified
871, 1913, 1914
Carl Bergner Dolls 1860-1930s German
Carl Bergner of Sonneberg, Thüringia, Germany is best known for his bisque multi-face dolls first patented in 1904 to 1905. The dolls have two or three faces, each with a different expression of crying, laughing, sleeping with black or white faces or both faces, that can be rotated from the top of the head.
The bisque head dolls have a cloth body with composition limbs or a all composition jointed body. Bergner also made high quality single face bisque head dolls, some Carl Bergner bisque doll heads were made by Simon & Halbig. In 1908 the company name was changed to Carl Bergner Nachf.