Throwback Thursday review: Armand Marseille Mabel

Hi, rascals.  It's RagingMoon1987 again, and I bid a happy/sappy/crappy New Year to y'all!  I hope everyone's winter holiday of choice was enjoyable; our Christmas was surprisingly enjoyable considering it's the first one we spent without Grandma.  Indeed, I daresay it's one of the best Christmases I ever had.  I hope and pray that there will be many more like it.  Now it's time to get my rear in gear and get back to posting here regularly.  Today we're paying another visit to Edwardian-era Thuringia, home and time of the bisque dolls.  No, I never did find an affordable Simon and Halbig doll...take that back, I did find an affordable Simon and Halbig doll, but...BUT SOMEONE ELSE BOUGHT HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  She wasn't perfect; her little hands were missing several fingers and her wig was in rough shape, but she had the sweetest little face and her clothes were to die for!  Le sigh, I could've had her, but I was trying to exhibit a little self-control.  That does prove though that patience will pay off, and that if I wait long enough I WILL find another Simon and Halbig doll in my price range.  So losing out on that doll was a bit of a heartbreak, but I did manage to snag another nice Armand Marseille girl.  Ever since I bought Hattie I've gotten advertisements for other old bisque dolls on my Etsy feed, and with this young lady being only forty dollars I had a hard time saying no.  For said forty bucks I got this young lady in good condition, with a different size and a different body, Hattie's exact opposite in every way except maker.  Meet Mabel.

Some Armand Marseille dolls were stamped with names on the backs of their necks, and their Mabel dolls are an example of this.  See?

Suits me.  Like the name "Hattie," the name "Mabel" is an old-fashioned name, perfect for an old-fashioned doll.  That said, with the exception of the manufacturer (both are Armand Marseille dolls) Mabel is about as different from Hattie as nighttime is from day.  Hattie's head is smashed and repaired, her body is made out of composition, her wig is original (for now), she possesses a character face, and she's tiny.  Mabel's head is in one piece, her body is...NOT made out of compo, her wig is...NOT original, her head is a "dolly face" head, and she's a fairly big doll.  She measures in at twenty inches, meaning that she's a little smaller than Kissy, Rael, and Saucy Walker (all of them are 23 inches) and a little taller than my eighteen-inch girls.  Just for shizzles here's how Mabel and Hattie compare in size.  Hattie is small enough to sit in Mabel's lap and play the part of Mabel's dolly.  Please pardon Mabel's skewed wig here.

Even though my Mabel is a good-sized doll, she is not representative of all dolls with the "Mabel" head.  Indeed, Mabel dolls came in a wide range of sizes, though I don't know if they were ever as small as Hattie.  I did see one on Ruby Lane that was twelve inches though, so I know that Mabel isn't always the size that my doll is.

Mabel has an open-top head like Hattie does, but since it's all in one piece I have fewer reservations about peeling this wig off and getting a good look at the interior of the head.  This wig is synthetic (Etsy seller was honest about this) and it looks okay, but I'm not 100% in love with it.

Yeah, it's a nicely styled wig that covers Mabel's pate, but it's got that sheen that synthetic fiber always has and thus it just doesn't look right on a doll this age.  I'll thus be embarking on a search for an old wig of human hair or mohair soon...or I could get brave and use my own hair!  LOL, in truth I don't have enough hair to make a decent doll wig!  It's long, clean, and shiny, but it's also frizzy, fine, and thin and I thus need what little I've got!  This wig has GOT to go, though.  It's just not Mabel's style, though it would look nice on one of my modern porcelain dolls.  Luckily for me the wig was only attached with a few dots of glue, and I was easily able to peel it off.  Mabel has a pate intact underneath, but I suspect that it too is a replacement.  I think it's made either of plastic or of heavily starched cheesecloth.

I can't remove the pate without fear of breaking it, so I'm going to leave it alone and be thankful that Mabel has a pate (Hattie's is long gone).  Of course this means that I won't be able to get inside her head now, but...y'all didn't really want to see that, didja???  Oh, you did?  Well, I...uh, I...tough!

Here's a better look at the face now.  Mabel dolls can be stunningly beautiful if painted well, but my particular example isn't the prettiest thing due to the way her lower lip is painted.  Her wig is once again crooked in this picture and that doesn't help matters much.

She's a little better when it's on straight, but she's still got a mondo overbite.

There is...I dunno, but there's SOMETHING about Mabel that makes her look like a reproduction rather than the real deal.  I know her wig is a replacement, but is her whole head a reproduction head?  I can't tell!  Maybe I've grown so used to Hattie's cracked and glue-smeared head that I expect to see damage like that?  But then again...is Mabel's head a little too perfect???  I'm really not sure, but a reproduction head would explain the forty-dollar-plus-shipping-and-handling price tag.  The porcelain is smooth and that can sometimes be a dead giveaway that the head is a reproduction, but Hattie's head is also smooth and she's definitely NOT a reproduction.  But then again, Mabel's head is sewn into her body...very...very...well.  See?  It's sewn in so well that I had a hard time showing y'all her neck mark.

This is an old body as we'll soon see, and I doubt this head could have been replaced without some sort of visible damage to the body, but then again the Etsy pictures showed it detached so the mark on the neck could be better photographed.  But then AGAIN this head fits the body perfectly, so unless some professional sized the head specifically to the body it probably is NOT a reproduction.  Maybe it's that too-shiny wig that gave me my doubts, and maybe it's these eyes that are throwing me off.  I've never seen eyes like these on an old doll before, not even in pictures yeah, there's a few that do have lined eyes like this, so I'm full of baloney again.  There's still something about these eyes, though.

They're lovely blue eyes with a spiral pattern, and they're stationary like Hattie's eyes are.  Some of these old bisque dolls have eyes that sleep, "flirt," or both, but Mabel's eyes are fixed in place.  I think this may have been done during some past restoration work, as the Etsy seller described these eyes as being "set to stationary."  They're very beautiful though.  Dig those spirals!

Regarding eye makeup Mabel has the heavy eyebrows typical of bisque dolls of the time (French brows are usually the heaviest), plus the feathered eyelashes that surround the eyes like veins of a leaf.  Again, this is typical of both German and French bisque dolls.  Here's a picture of Hattie's good eye for reference.  Notice that Hattie's eyes don't have the spiral pattern that Mabel's do.

Hattie's eyes look eerily like mine, by the way.  Mine are a similar color, and they don't have a spiral pattern either, LOL.  Now to Mabel's goofy-looking mouth.

I can't help but LOL at this mouth.  Teeth were very, VERY common on bisque dolls like this (remember that Hattie has a couple showing), but these are outta sight!  I originally thought that these were inset teeth, but they're carved/molded into the porcelain.  See?

The lips are brick red, and as I said above I think they're what bothers me the most with this mouth.  Mabel's teeth don't bother me a bit, but her bottom lip isn't full enough and it looks like Mabel's biting or sucking on her lip or worse, like she's got an Eliza Thornberry-caliber overbite.  These are fine teeth though, very robustly constructed.  I've seen dolls like this with teeth that were molded so thinly that they looked like they'd break, and I doubt Mabel will have to worry about that.  The rest of this face is nicely painted and molded, with rosy cheeks and a little dimpled chin.

That proves to me that the Queen Louise head was not the only one with a dimple in her chin (I had wondered if that was a distinguishing feature for Queen Louise).  So I still am not sure if this is an antique head or a very well-done reproduction, but it's got its good features and I can't wait to see how it looks with a new wig.  How I wish my Mabel's lower lip were painted in more, though!  This head makes a pretty little doll when the lip is wider.  But hey, at least my doll isn't missing any teeth!  Missing teeth make dolls like this look just a smidge freaky.  Mabel dolls with narrow lower lips are pretty common, by the way; eBay has a whole slew of Mabel dolls, and some of them look like my girl.  Others have a fuller lip and are very attractive.  Oh, and prices are all over the board; one little doll that's in better shape than mine is was going for fifty bucks (she has replaced arms made out of plastic), while another doll missing her clothes, wig, and pate was going for two hundred. 

As a last little note, Mabel does NOT have a socket head like Hattie does.  Her head and neck are all one piece.

So I still have no idea whether this head is a reproduction or not, though it IS possible for bisque heads to age well and sustain no cracks or dings.  Repro head or no, this body is definitely an oldie.  Remember when I said that Hattie's human-hair wig was new territory for me?  Mabel's body is made of kid, something that I've never seen or touched before, so this is also new territory.

Take that back, I saw a pair of antique kid gloves one time, so I know what it looks and feels like.  Mabel is my first doll with a body made of this material, though.  Since kid IS leather this body is showing its age in more than a few places (the Etsy seller was honest about this).  Some of this wear is largely a cosmetic issue...

Other areas, like Mabel's right elbow, have more concerning signs of age.

The shoulders are the worst.  They already have some repairs.

Thus I'll have to be careful with this body.  But to have a leather body at all is quite pleasing, particularly since leather is not a common material for dolls anymore.  The body is jointed to a certain extent, with hinges at the hips...

...and gussets at the knees.

Due to these leg joints Mabel cannot stand unassisted, but she can sit like a champ.  The gussets at her knees should also allow for bending, but the range of motion isn't great here.  This is as far as she can bend her knees.

Mabel's elbows also have gussets, but the joints here don't bend at all since the gussets are too close to the lower arms, which are made out of unyielding porcelain.

I seriously doubt that the motion in these joints was great to begin with since leather is not the most flexible of materials.  Here's a better look at Mabel's lower arms now.

These are stubby little arms, again par for the course with bisque dolls.  They have molded nails and knuckles, and the left hand has some visible repairs as well.  Her thumb appears to have been reconstructed, and her ring finger has a ding in it.  The seller was honest about this.

Briefly I want to take a closer look at these lower legs.  They are cloth rather than the kid that I was expecting, and upon closer inspection it's easy to see why Mabel is wearing long stockings.  These lower legs are...I don't know if they're both filthy and old or just old, but either way they're pretty dark.

Once again, the Etsy seller was honest about this filth.  I've gotten pretty fortunate with honest sellers on eBay and Etsy, haven't I?  In all, an old body with a few flaws is better than no body at all.  At least Mabel isn't falling apart like poor Hattie is, and she has all her parts present unlike some other bisque dolls I've seen and fallen for.  Seriously, I have a little Ernst Heubach doll on my favorites list on Etsy, and she has no, repeat, NO LOWER ARMS.  No wig, no clothes, and nnnnnnnnnnnoooooo arms!!!  What can I say, I'm a sucker for a pretty face, and the Heubach doll has a pretty face indeed, fixer upper or no.  She's still there, on my favorites list, even though I have no immediate plans to buy her.  Maybe when I have a little money to blow and a little time on my hands...maybe THEN she'll come home.

Right then, back to Mabel.  Mabel's clothes are pretty simple, consisting of a long white dress and the aforementioned white knee-high stockings, plus some nice pantaloons underneath.

The dress is just a plain white dress with lace panels at the neck.

Nothing else to it, really.  No buttons or ribbons, no decorations on the sleeves or the hem of the skirt, nothing but a safety pin at the nape of Mabel's neck.

The safety pin serves a very important purpose, as this little dress is (I suspect) a dress intended for a very small child rather than a doll.  It fits Mabel poorly, as one can see when I lie her down.

As anal retentive as I am about my dolls' appearances, I'm actually not terribly bothered by this flowing white frock.  A fair amount of the antique dolls I've run into are wearing long white dresses, and the oversized bodice and sleeves add an ethereal edge to Mabel's aesthetic.  It's also like something I'd wear; being heavyset I tend to like my clothes loose, even though that makes me look even bigger (LOL).  If the poor fit does get to bothering me I can always modify the fit somehow. 

Mabel's stockings are nothing super special, just white knitted stockings that go up past her knee.  They could do with a washing, but they're a lot cleaner than Mabel's lower legs are!

No shoes, though I can't think of any doll shoes that would fit a foot this bulky.  I'd have to make some if I wanted to bother with shoes.

Lastly, the pantaloons are your typical pantaloons, white with lace edging on the legs.

These fit Mabel perfectly, so they were probably made specifically for her.  They are not vintage though; the fabric is too clean and too...well, too MODERN-feeling, and the waist has elastic that wouldn't be present if the pantaloons were antique.  I always appreciate underwear for old dolls, though.  It shows me that someone cared enough to make her decent underneath, and in Mabel's era modesty was the thing.

Now that that's all over and done with, I think we could do with a little silliness.  Shortly after I bought Mabel I bought her a wig.  Specifically THIS wig.

Red-brown braids from Prodolls on Etsy.  In other words, perfect for a little girl doll like Mabel.  The wig came on October twenty-fourth, a day when I'd brought my little witch doll Abigail to the library.  It was a slow day, and thus I decided to try the wig on Abigail and see how it looked on her.  The results were...well, since Abigail has a full head of hair the results were just a little ridiculous.

LOL, I think this WOULD have worked had Abigail been bald, but I don't want her to be bald!  Besides, Mabel's the one who needs new hair.

That's some better; the wig matches Mabel's eyebrows better than that shiny old black wig did.  The poor little thing will never win any beauty contests, though.  Rather sad too, as Vintage Doll Collector proves that the Mabel mold can be VERY attractive when painted right.  His Mabel doesn't even have her wig or eyes in place and she's still prettier than my Mabel is!  Oh well, I still think the new wig is an improvement, as it makes Mabel look like an honest-to-God real antique doll rather than a reproduction with a synthetic wig.  She does look better when the wig is tipped back some, away from her eyebrows.

Yeah, that's better.  Now to glue that bad boy in place!

With Mabel's new wig debuted, I think that's a good place to end it.

BAD
*Not the prettiest face in the world.  I've seen worse, but I've also seen better.
*Had to be rewigged.  This wasn't really necessary, but I like the red wig a lot better.
*Body is a little dirty and is showing normal signs of wear.  This is age-related and thus not a terrible problem.  The left arm has some wear, also age-related.
*Clothes are ill-fitting, though I can remedy this.

GOOD
*Porcelain is in good shape; Mabel's head is not smashed like poor Hattie's was.  Her teeth are intact.
*Those eyes...oh, those eyes are gorgeous!
*Finding a wig in the correct size was easy!
*Fairly easy to redress; I haven't attempted this yet, but how hard could it be?
*Who doesn't love an old bisque doll???

Well...maybe that last one there is up for question, since bisque dolls like Hattie and Mabel are not everyone's cuppa.  And if any of y'all are not fond of these old dolls, spoiler alert:  I have another bisque doll, and her review is scheduled for early February.  Now, regarding Mabel, I like her but I wish I'd held off for that Simon and Halbig doll instead.  Had I held off I could've afforded her.  She was vastly superior to Mabel in looks, she didn't need to be rewigged, and her clothes fit her properly.  She was missing a shoe and one hand needed to be mended, but oh...what a sweet little face that doll had.  On the other hand, Mabel IS a bisque doll, and antique bisque dolls really should not be pooh-poohed even if they are unattractive.  Furthermore, Mabel is in much better shape than Hattie is, she was easy to rewig, and she even had a ready-made name!  She's got a nice body too, made out of leather with all limbs intact (unlike poor Eva), and she's dressed.  Granted the dress is ill-fitting, but it IS a dress and it looks nice.  I do wish I had some shoes for Mabel's stubby little feet, but at least she has nice long stockings.  So really I have no right to complain too loudly; Mabel is dressed, she isn't broken or falling apart, and she was easily rewigged (unlike Hattie).  I...I just wish that mouth was painted better!  Good thing there are other Mabel dolls out there that have prettier mouths.  If any of y'all want a Mabel, just search hard and make sure she's got a well-painted lower lip, and she'll look fine in a bisque collection.  Or...hold out for your favorite maker!  I guarantee you'll find an affordable one eventually.

Cheers,
RagingMoon1987