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How to become a Doll-Doctor
Well, there is no official education - and one cannot study by correspondence course either. The only way to start is to find a experienced person practising the trade, and to become his/her apprentice. That is the way my "career" started at any case, although as a matter of fact I happened to come to it by special circumstances.
As a child I was not specially fond of dolls. When I was eight years old I got a "real flesh doll", as my mother called it, for my birthday. It was one of the first vinyl dolls that, opposite the hard and cold celluloid dolls of that time, felt smooth and warm when you touched it, just like skin. My mother was very preoccupied by this. When we had visitors, the guests had to admire the doll and pinch it in the arms.
I did not play with "Liesbet" very often, though she could drink and pee, and grumble out when she was pressed on the belly. I preferred to have a good book instead of dolls. When I was a child, I drove my mother to desperation by being the worst bookworm imaginable.
With our neighbour, a sweet and rather eccentric, manic-depressive woman whom I loved to visit, I saw for the first time some old-fashioned jointed china dolls with wooden elbow and knee joints. Somehow those dolls continued being in my mind; those singularly formed limbs, the pretty white gowns in which they were dressed, the long black stockings, and the real hair wigs they wore. I was fascinated by those dolls.
Many years later I entered an antique shop and saw a big china doll. On impulse I bought her and she still lives with me. After some years she became a little loose in the joint, as the rubber bands were crumbled.
By this time I was living in Denmark, as I married a Dane in 1966. I had heard that a doll-doctor was living in Helsingør - in English Elsinore - a charming old city lying with the narrowest part of the sound at North Seeland.
I phoned her and presented my problem. The answer was not very encouraging. She was sorry to say that she had so many repairs to do that she could take on no new work. I might phone her after a few years. The poor doll was laid aside. Once more, some years passed.
I was appointed as a remedial teacher. In the light of the special problems with which my pupils contended, my group was small, only five children, who in that way would get all my attention. As they were hardly suited to book learning, we would take excursions around the countryside.
One day the children and I walked through the city of Helsingør on our way to the youth hostel, placed at the outside of the town, in a beautiful old manor house with a magnificent view over the sound to Sweden at the other side. We strolled along a street with old houses from the 17th century, and suddenly we remarked a sign on one of the houses that told us; here lives the dolls' doctor.
Well, it could be nice to have a look indoors and see the workshop. Will we be allowed? We tried, and yes, we were very welcome, and the children had a lot to look at, dolls' parts, lying, standing and hanging around! Arms, legs, bodies, eyes, wigs everywhere!
In that way I made my first contact with Else Egedam, my teacher in the noble art of doll-restoring.
Over a number of years I visited her and her husband Jens once a week and learned to execute all kinds of repairs on all kinds of dolls. There were many varieties!
Once I asked her when she thought I would be an accomplished dolls' doctor. "One never is," she answered. But by 1988 I had learned enough to work independently.
It is an ancient trade, dolls have been made since the beginning of our era and perhaps for as long as mankind has existed. Now there is something of a renaissance in interest in old dolls. Many people produce their own copies of antique china dolls, and that has the consequence that interest in the original dolls increases all the more. People have taken their old dolls from hiding places and put them on display in their living rooms. Such displays make themselves very apparent, as old dolls of this kind bring forth a very special atmosphere.
In the past, dolls reflected the adult world. There is ample documentation of their presence in all cultures, in which they might have a magical or religious function.
From the 19th century dolls came into general use in Europe. Initially they were not used as toys here, but as mannequins; they should show the last fashion to the consumers of the day.
The dolls' bodies were sewed of fabric or skin and stiffly filled up with sawdust. They would assume the very shape called for by the fashion of the moment.
The dolls' heads were made skilfully. The earlier examples were carved from wood. The later ones that were more sophisticated and made of wax.
After 1830 the first china dolls were produced. Their design was often inspired by well-known women of the period. One example was the Swedish singer Jenny Lind, someone much admired by the Danish fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen. Other examples are the French Empress Eugénie and the Danish Queen Caroline Amalie. Later on Shirley Temple was used as a model for a doll's head.
The clothes were sewn to illustrate the latest design from the from the fashion magazines of the day. From 1880 dolls grew more and more childish. Now they had movable eyes and looked like 10-12 year old girls. After the turn of the century they became younger still and ended at last as babes in arms. The baby doll was born.
Later developments were more technical in character. The dolls learned to drink, to eat - and what thereof is following - and to speak, to laugh, to weep, to walk…the list is surely not yet complete. During the Second World War it was impossible to get rubber bands. At that time the dolls were repaired with steel springs. The drawback of this was that the springs could rust, and that lead to the doll losing its head. And that might be very unhealthy for a china doll.
Antique dolls tell their own stories, and that is why I think it is interesting to have to deal with them. They are mostly owned by grown-ups, who may nonetheless have a lot to say about the fate of their special "child".
It is also rewarding to have to do with modern vinyl dolls, which often have very "young mothers". To these mothers it is a serious thing, in quite another way, to leave their poor sick darling at the doll-doctor, even when I assure them - word of honour - that I will take very good care of their child. It can be difficult to bring up original parts to use by repairing the old doll, but I am glad to say that I have never had to give up repairing a doll for lack of parts. If necessary I mould or model the required parts myself.
In work with the dolls I have to use different moulds and special tools and—perhaps not so accidentally - I often use tools that are used by a human physician. For example, when I have to tighten a rubber band I use an artery clip inherited from the throat specialist and my dentist is kind enough to supply me with a set of long pincers. Another such tool is a kind of crooked hook, called a "fisherman". The only way to get this tool was by asking for it from the plumber.
But...the most important tool in repairing dolls is patience and the respect for a unique object that cannot be replaced.
Thea Rønsby
P.S. Procuring original parts of dolls for repair can be difficult. If you happen to have a broken doll in one of your hiding places and it not can be repaired any more, then parts of it can certainly be used for a "doll transplant". Please remember me.
T.R.