I don’t get philosophical about the concept of retail therapy. I just know it works!

So, here’s my latest doll fix:

Her face is sweet and her blue eyes are captivating. The color on her nose is rubbed off giving her a bit of a pug-nose look. Since I live with the exquisite Lily the pug, I am charmed.

I bought her on eBay from a French dealer from whom I have purchased several wonderful dolls.  His eBay name is “let_it_bid”, and his real name is Jean-Marc Calvo.

He always packs the dolls very well. One special doll came in an elegant black and gold French perfume box with a drawer. This time, the box made me smile. He marked it with cartoon scissors to show me where to cut to open it. I bought her one week ago and she came from France today. Impressive!

Standing 13cm (5 1/4″) tall, she is the size Mignonette first offered to the young readers of La Poupee Modele in 1878.

To begin examining her, I removed the rubber band that was holding on her wig and hat. As you can see from the hat, it has a lot of glue adhering it to the wig. And there’s a small tack holding the wig to the pate.

I don’t know if she came to Jean-Marc in these clothes or if he put together bits and pieces to dress her. Since he removed them to show her on the eBay listing, he added strings to put them back on her. I think the big red bow on her bum is funny.

I will redress her in these clothes and wig after I clean her up a bit so I can display her. But she WILL get new clothes.

Her head, torso, arms and legs are all marked 13 (for 13cm). There is a bit of leather at her swivel neck to keep the bisque from chafing.

There is one small chip on her hip that I already knew about from the listing. She is firmly strung with pegged joints.

Her shoes are a bit scuffed, too. I love, love, love to see signs that a doll has been played with.

This side view shows the domed glass of her blue eyes.

Her painting is well done. As to value, multi-stroke eyebrows would make her more valuable. Her eyes are fixed in place. “French” all-bisque dolls of this era usually did not have sleep eyes.

Is she what I was expecting? YES! I bought her from someone I trust, even though he lives an ocean away, and she is just as he described her. And it only took one week for me to hold her in my hands.

This one’s all mine. She will not be sold or flipped any time soon.