Madame Montanari was an English doll maker between 1851 and 1884. She created beautiful, poured wax dolls and claimed to have crafted the famous Royal Model Dolls, the portrait dolls of Queen Victoria’s children. However, almost every wax doll maker in England made the same claim. In addition, Madame Montanari is recorded as winning a prize for a cloth doll at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851.
Montanari poured wax shoulder head doll
With fixed blue glass eyes, painted mouth and inserted short auburn hair, on a cloth body with chubby wax lower arms, wearing original white cotton dress with long blue cape, white lace bonnet and silk boots, 66cm (26in) tall. Sold for £1,250 at Bonhams
A fine Montanari poured wax child doll
with head turned to the left, pale blue eyes, inset blonde eyebrows and hair seperately inserted with centre parting and ringlets, the stuffed body with wax limbs, no eyelets and creases at elbows and wrists, wearing original green wool frock edged with jet beads, braid and lace, and lined with muslin, cotton and flannel petticoats, shift, drawers, lacy socks and brown kid shoes; and a wooden doll box, circa 1850 –25in. (64cm.) high
Sold for GBP1,320 at Christie’s
Dolly an All Original Montanari Wax child with Wooden Box. ca. 1845, Mary Merritt’s favorite doll, this lovely Montanari wax child remains in her original wooden box with glazed cotton tufted inserts and has her provenance, she is wearing a miniature portrait on ivory of her owner Heather M. Smith, she has a poured wax shoulder head, blue glass inset eyes, painted and molded features, inserted blonde hair, muslin body with poured wax limbs, and wears an original muslin dress, according to the written history “Dolly” suffered a broken arm in 1848 and was sent to a doll hospital to get a new arm, upon her return Heather wrote a poem for her which remained in the box, shortly after little Heather died and Dolly was tied into her box and put away
Size: doll 18.5′ t. Sold For: $14,000 at
Pook & Pook, Inc. with Noel Barrett
HEATHER SMITH’S OUTSTANDING ENGLISH POURED WAX CHILD DOLL, MONTANARI, PROVENANCE. 27″ (69 cm.) Porcelain shoulderhead of adult lady with lightly-tinted complexion, heart-shaped face, elongated throat, black painted hair waved away from face with detailed stippling around the forehead and loosely coiled chignon at the back of her head, sculpted ears with a cluster of colorful morning glory flowers behind each ear, painted pale blue eyes, red and black upper eyeliner, single-stroke brows, accented nostrils, aquiline nose, closed mouth with full lips, muslin stitch-jointed body, leather arms, antique gown, shoes and undergarments. Condition: generally excellent. Comments: Lippert & Haas of Schlaggenwald, circa 1865. Value Points: the refined lady has elegant posture of head and throat, especially fine detail of modeling, sculpted morning glory flowers in colorful array. Sold for $18,500 at Theriault’s
The Montanari family were among the best known UK producers of wax dolls in the Victorian era. (Richard) Napoleon Montanari (born about 1813) was a wax modeller; his wife Madame Montanari (born Charlotte Augusta Dalton in Grantham in about 1818) was a dollmaker who specialised in producing exquisitely dressed dolls; their elder son Richard Napoleon Montanari (born about 1840) was also a wax modeller and doll maker. Victoria and Albert Museum
Wax head and outer limbs on cloth body, representing Princess Louise (b 1848) as a young child; made in England by Montanari, 1850-3. Like the Pierotti family, the Montanaris made a number of dolls representing royalty. This doll shows the sixth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, later Marchioness of Lorne and Duchess of Argyll, who was born on 18th March 1848. Victoria & Albert Museum
A MONTANARI POURED WAX DOLL Hollow wax hands and feet, cloth body, grey-blue glass eyes. Height 16.5″. Sold For: $200 at Jackson’s Auction
