Very small dolls

Serbia 1.5"

Pictured here are, to the best of my knowledge, the very smallest dolls in the Narodna Radinost range. As the dolls are hand made sizes do vary and so the numbers provided are rounded up or down to the nearest half inch. The tiny doll above is designed to be a bookmark and so has a hand woven tape attached to her back. A similar doll features in The How To Book of International Dolls by Loretta Holz* which is incorrectly identified as Hungarian. Not widely available, these tiny dolls do pop up from time to time on online auction sites.
Serbia
Back Row 3"
    Front Row  1.5"


Serbia 3"
Much more common are the 3 or 3.5" pairs joined by a length of woven tape which were very popular as souvenirs given their size and ease of display. The facial detail is obviously less elaborate on these tiny dolls and they are usually found only in the Serbian folk costume of Sumadija  or sometimes in the Croatian folk costume of Konavlje. Occasionally these tiny dolls , and indeed the larger 5" dolls, can be found attached to small rounds of material-covered cardboard. It is usually the female Serbian doll who can be holding a sheaf of wheat or a distaff to spin wool with. Just recently I have seen a wonderful example of  5 male and female Serbian dolls, attached to a cardboard base, dancing in a circle with their arms linked while a male doll plays the frula, a wooden flute.



Croatia 3"


* Loretta Holz The How To Book of International Dolls Crown Publishers New York 1980 p.19

Comments

Instagram