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Precious presents keep on giving
The French and German dolls found by little Victorian girls under their candlelighted trees on Christmas morning were treasured toys to be treated with tender loving care.
Most were, and today those Jumeau, Kestner, and other antique dolls are coveted by collectors, with some of them selling for thousands of dollars.
At James D. Julia’s Toy, Doll & Advertising Auction last month in Fairfield, Maine, the top seller was a rare Jumeau French character doll known as “The Screamer,’’ which brought $37,375. However, there were Jumeau bebes (dolls made to represent children) that sold for lesser prices, like the 35-inch doll dressed in a vintage sailor suit and with its original curly blond mohair wig that fetched $3,737.
Among the German dolls was a 16-inch Googly that was made in the early 1900s by Heubach and that sold for $5,750.
A rare Ives clockwork toy of a boy on a perambulator from the latter part of the 19th century, which had been stashed away for years in a New Hampshire attic, topped the toys, bringing $8,050.
Buddy L toys, which had great appeal for boys in the 1920s and ’30s because they worked, were topped by a train with six freight cars that sold for $6,325.
All 87 lots of American and European trains collected for over half a century by Reginald Smith of Wenham found buyers. Prices ranged from $1,840 for three Metrop HO locomotives with their original boxes to $230 for a Fleischmann HO locomotive and five passenger cars with their original boxes. A lot of 23 prewar American Flyer and Ives catalogs brought the collection’s top price of $2,070.
Although the majority of doll collectors are women, some men have long shared this interest, including the late Richard Wright, the first president of the National Antique Doll Dealers Association.
Wright, who died in March at 62, became interested in collecting dolls as a teenager, probably influenced by his mother’s interest. Later as a Pennsylvania antiques dealer, he decided to specialize in dolls. His personal 457-lot collection of dolls, doll furniture, and accessories was auctioned by Skinner in October.
According to Andy Ourant, a consultant for the sale, Wright loved the common as well as the rare and unusual doll. This was seen in the auction, where a Queen Anne lady doll made in England around 1720 went for $50,363, while a pair of mid-20th-century dolls portraying the film comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy fetched $3,555.
A rare four-piece set of “Alice in Wonderland’’ stockinette dolls, made around 1920 in Pawtucket, R.I., by Martha Chase, brought the auction’s third highest price of $40,290 quadrupling the $10,073 paid for a circa 1910 German bisque head Bruno Schmidt character child. Another circa 1910 German bisque head doll was a character girl by Kestner, considered the king of German dollmakers. It brought the fourth highest price of $37,920, while a circa 1820 German portrait-type carved wood doll sold for $31,995, the fifth highest price.
The auction’s top seller was a magician automaton made around 1890 by Roullet & Descamps, the Parisian company, whose creations are on view in a museum in Souillac, France. The 28-inch magician fetched $80,580 against a $25,000-$35,000 estimate.
The auction grossed $1,323,284 against a presale estimate of $1,089,175-$1,490,700.
Two weeks after the doll sale Skinner auctioned Wright’s 766-lot collection of decorative arts and furniture.
In 1950, when Wright was only 14, he opened his first antiques shop, and by the time he was in his early 20s he was living in London, where he discovered the decorative arts movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. From then on he collected, along with dolls, antiques from the Aesthetic Movement, Art Nouveau, and Arts & Crafts periods.
A Tiffany leaded glass lamp with a Peony shade brought the auction’s top price of $435,000 against a $300,000-$500,000 estimate, while the second highest price was the $136,275 paid for a circa 1900 Galle mother-of-pearl and fruitwood inlaid two-drawer side table with a $6,000-$8,000 estimate.
Most decorative items also soared above their estimates, including the bronze figure of a semi-clad woman holding a riding crop by the German sculptor Bruno Zach (1891-1935) that sold for $94,800 ($12,000-$15,000). Two whimsical “Wally Bird’’ tobacco jars, glazed stoneware birds with human features, by the British potters the Martin brothers, fetched $82,950 and $59,250 (each $12,000-$18,000).
The gross was $2,637,346 against a presale estimate of $872,215-$1,333,610.
Virginia Bohlin can be reached at globeantiques@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
