Overview
This doll was a treasured toy of two girls whose childhoods were separated by more than forty years. The first owner was an American girl called Nan. In about 1880, she was taken to a toyshop by her aunt and allowed to choose a doll for her seventh birthday. Nan called the doll Angelina.
To any young girl of the time, Angelina would have been a beautiful and very special toy. With her came a trousseau of finely made clothes and accessories. But perhaps her most remarkable feature at the time was her ‘Mama-Papa’ voice. Pull the long string with the red bead, and she’d say ‘Mama’. Pull the short string with the blue bead, and she’d say ‘Papa’.
In 1924, Nan was by now Mrs Nan Phillips. She became friendly with the Paterson family from New Zealand, who were living in Boston at the time. She had no children of her own, and she was especially fond of young Pamela Paterson, who became a kind of honorary niece to her. One day, Aunt Nan told Pamela that as she was now seven years old, she wanted to give her a doll, just as Nan's aunt had given her one when she was seven. So Pamela was given Angelina. Before the Patersons returned to New Zealand, Pamela and Nan picked out lots of doll clothes from Nan’s collection, so Angelina could be well dressed for the long journey home.
Angelina represents a high point in dollmakers’ craft. Her head is of finely moulded and carefully decorated porcelain. Her body is made of papier mâché, with arms and legs that move, and finely fashioned hands. We’re not sure exactly where she was made or by whom. Doll historians call her a ‘Belton bébé’ type because of the shape of her head and body.
It’s fairly certain that her head came from Germany. It is very like ones made by German factories in the 1870s and supplied to dollmakers in France, who would have made the body and assembled the doll, with its crystal eyes and all its working parts, including the voice-box (a French invention patented in the 1850s). Angelina’s wardrobe and accessories would have been made by a highly skilled needlewoman.
Angelina gave as much pleasure to Pamela as she had given to Nan. Pamela looked after her carefully throughout her childhood. In the 1960s, Pamela thought that since Angelina had survived so long and was still in such good condition, she had become a precious object in need of special care – a time capsule of the fashion of a former time. She decided to give Angelina to our Museum to join the other dolls in Te Papa’s collection.
And Angelina can still say ‘Mama! Papa!’, though her voice is a bit croaky these days!
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998)