Celley or Calley

Name: Celley or Calley (handwritten on the doll’s neck)

Made by and When: Barbara J. Larsen (a.k.a. Barbara Larsen), 1992

Material: Painted and gessoed cloth face, sturdily-stuffed brown cloth body, arms, and legs

Marks: (Signed by the artist on the neck) Barb Larsen / 1992 / Celley / 11/16/92. [Celley could be Calley; the handwriting is difficult to discern.]

Height: 22 inches

Hair/Eyes/Mouth: The hair is made of gessoed or stiffened strips of fabric accented with royal blue ribbons/painted brown side-glancing eyes/smiling, closed mouth

Clothes: Off-white rose-print dress with blue grosgrain ribbon at the drop waist, antique-lace-trimmed white pantaloons, white socks, off-white shoes

Other: The doll has a downward gaze with a shy facial expression. This head sculpt was used on other Larsen dolls that were dressed differently, with different hairstyles, and given different names. Male dolls in this fashion were also made by the artist. View the slideshow below to see more pictures of Calley and two other similar dolls by Larsen. (The last two photos are courtesy of liveauctioneers.com and Alderfer Auctions—the dolls are Cameron and Cammie, made in 1988 by Barbara Larsen.)

Slideshow (Use right or left arrows to advance the slideshow).

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Published by DeeBeeGee

Doll collector, historian, co-founder of the first e-zine devoted to collecting black dolls; author of black-doll reference books, doll blogs, and doll magazine articles.

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