Serbian Dolls

Pictured here are a pair of 13" dolls wearing the folk costume of Sumadija in Serbia and bearing the Narodna Radinost label. A picture of a similar pair can be found in The How to Book of International Dolls by Loretta Holz ( New York, 1980) at pg195. Since I saw that picture in 2010 I have searched for a pair like it and finally in 2021 I have managed to acquire these two. They are both in excellent condition: bright and clean with only the white of the shirts darkened by age. They are the only large dolls I own that are tagged and those tags indicate they were sold as a pair. The shoes on this range of dolls can often be missing or in poor condition but these are still fully intact.

I have discussed the folk costume from Sumadija several times before on the blog ( Serbian dolls,Serbian dolls) and these two are very well made examples of it. As always the female's apron is a stand out, here it is a deep burgundy velvet with 3 rows of hand stitched flowers. The male costume is also enhanced here with the hand embroidered detail on the shirt front.