Serbian dolls

I thought it might be interesting to photograph the complete range of sizes available to the collector of Narodna Radinost dolls. Pictured here are dolls wearing the folk costume of Sumadija in Serbia, ranging from the large 12 inch size to the tiny 1.5 inch. The smaller male and female dolls  are often found attached to each other by means of a woven piece of material which I will feature in a later blog post. I only have a complete set of male and female Serbian dolls and I suspect the tiniest version were only made in the Serbian costume. 

As these dolls are handmade there is some variation in the sizing and as a rule the older dolls are a little smaller, just under 8 inches or 12 inches for example, whilst the later doll are larger, so  8 - 9 inches and 12 inches plus.  

The largest dolls are relatively hard to find. They do not feature in the Kimport or Mark Farmer doll catalogs of the period like their smaller versions. Over the years I have managed to collect several examples which I intend to touch on in another post.