Lenci dolls

Lenci dolls are pressed felt dolls with painted features, manufactured in Turin by Enrico and Elena (Lenci) Scavini from 1919 until 1944. They are now collectables.

Description

Lenci Boy and girl dolls sitting together at the Judges' Lodgings, Lancaster

The bodies and the clothing of Lenci boy and girl dolls are made of pressed woolen felt. The bodies were machine stitched up the back and across the shoulders then hand stitched between the legs. This allowed them to wear low cut tops and clothes that displayed their limbs. The faces were pressed on moulds and features were then hand painted, hair was made from mohair and this was stitched in.^[1] Felt pressed dolls were very popular in the nineteenth century and just after the first world war. The eyes face sideways, giving the boys a sullen expression and the girls one of loneliness. These dolls have Lenci stamped into the felt of the foot. They were produced in various sizes, sold with various costumes or uniforms. The two dolls in the Judges' Lodgings museum in Lancaster have the boy in a burgundy cardigan, and the girl in a blue hat and coat.^[2]They were purported to have been made in memory and in the image of a dead daughter. (Personal memory of 'sales pitch' by clerk in the Lenci store in France when doll purchased for me in 1930, although have heard it from others.)

History

Elena König was born in Turin in 1885. She moved to Germany, where she acquired the pet name of Lenchen which mutated into Lenci when back in Italy. During the chaos of the Great War where Italy fought against Germany, she experimented with felt, and its many properties. She married Enrico Scavini in 1915, and he included felt doll manufacture in the Lenci business- one that was primarily concerned with ceramics.

In 1937, the firm employed 300 workers and the family relinquished control.

The factory was bombed during an air-raid in 1944. The company liquidated in 2002.

Literature

The Lonely Doll is the first children's book in a series by photographer and author Dare Wright. The story is told through text and photographs. It was first published by Doubleday in 1957, went out of print for years, was reissued by Houghton Mifflin in 1998 and re-published again by Barnes & Noble, in a narrated version for their Nook eReader, in 2012. Edith, the lonely doll of the title is a Lenci doll. Modern readers may be disturbed by the spanking scene where Mr Bear disciplines Edith and Little Bear.^[3]

References

1. "Lenci boy and girl dolls". Bethnell Green, London: V&A Museum of Childhood. 2014. Retrieved 3 October 2014.
2. Judges' Lodgings, Lancaster Description Panel
3. Coleman, David, "The Unsettling Stories of Two Lonely Dolls". The New York Times, October 17, 2004

External links

• Lenci Collectors' website
• Lazenby. Lenci. ISBN 978-1932485455.