A lovely old (late 1800s to 1920s or so) pair of dolls, a bisque black couple. Each doll is well dressed in cotton or similar textile outfits. The shawl on the lady and the scarf on the man, look very much like my grandfather’s handkerchief. Note that the man is darker than the lady. I don’t know if pigment wore off or these dolls were originally just different from each other.
Note that this pair came out of the local estate of a doll collector, R. Lane Herron. Herron wrote a book on doll values for Schiffer Publishing. The man of the couple here has a note pinned to his clothing. In ink, the paper states “Super rare Negro China man, Civil War era, $500.00.”
The man measures approximately 7 1/2″ long/tall (head to toe). The lady measures just about 7″ tall, head to toe. She has neat little pantaloons at the top of her bisque legs, a cotton slip and then all the clothing you see here.
Both dolls are in good antique condition with expected wear for their age, wear and soil to the fabric and some wear to the blue yarn you see at the lady’s collar.
Both are in good, old condition.
