German 201

Antique baby doll with sleep eyes in damaged head on a bent-legged baby body containing a "Mama" voicebox. Head had been repaired with heavy glue; some fingers and toes missing; (assumed original) wig in poor state. Assumed some original clothing. Marked only with the number 201 and Germany.
Possibly made by Schützmeister & Quendt. [Fainges Antique Dolls of China and Bisque Page 137.]
Cleaned and restored on original baby body, repairing fingers, restringing and painting. Probable original clothing and wig. Antique bonnet not original to doll. See below for further construction details.
S
chützmeister & Quendt (1889-1920+) mark S and Q entwined. Purchased by Bing in 1918, and went on to manufacture half-dolls in the 1920's.

When I first saw the doll I was unsure if I should buy her or not. She was very dirty and in pieces and I was not sure of my ability to restore her, (and I am not fond of baby dolls). Looking at her now I cannot think why I had any second thoughts, especially considering her low price; the clothing alone is worth what I paid for the entire doll. My only concern now is that although I have definitely improved her by my restoration, I have not kept the doll as original as possible with my repainting and so on. I will just defend myself by saying that if purists had found her she would have undoubtedly have been used in parts rather than kept as a whole doll.
During the course of the restoration I referred mainly to Barbara Koval's book How to Repair and Restore Dolls. I had never had to restore a doll body before and used the usual techniques with some additions of my own. I repaired the fingers in the following way: I cast some fingers of a similar size (from a Jumeaux hand mould) in "Compobell" slip. I drilled into the finger and then the broken stump using a 2mm drill bit which I very carefully manipulated by hand. This was not easy as composition slip is not intended to be used in this way and is very brittle; the result however was better than my attempt to mould a finger freeform around a matchstick. I used a two-part epoxy to glue a piece of matchstick into the stump and the new finger to hold them together and offer support - some adjustment was required here to get the finger to be the right length. I then filled the gap, and rebuilt the toes using a wood filler which was subsequently sanded to the right shape. The new parts were than painted and the body restrung fairly loosely; I then discovered how she had sustained such damaged to her head as she has a tendency to collapse under her own weight backwards.
Her head really is quite badly damaged and alone would not not have been preserved. However I did not do very much to it other than cleaning without soaking. I wanted to avoid having to reset the sleep eyes, and there was a risk that having soaked it apart I could not have restored it any better than the original attempt. I cleaned the face with facial cleansing lotions and creams, and lightly cleaned it with soapy water without immersing in the water. I picked off the visible excess glue carefully with a scalpel. Some pieces of the head had come away as I removed the wig; I reglued these and rebuilt the back of the head, filling where necessary with wood filler and sanding. I experimented here at the back of the head, using acrylics to see if I could match the colour of the porcelain. It seemed to me that her wig had been cut (children seem to do this), as well as being dirty and sparse. I added in some locks of hair - I used a viscose hair as it matched the colour moderately well, and also anyone subsequently can easily see that it is not part of the original. In handling the wig, much of the dirt and old glue fell out. At first I thought I would make a new wig but having seen pictures of what I believe is an original of this type, I decided to keep the hair short in style and add a bonnet. The clothing merely needed excessive washing; some of it I removed as it seemed clearly not to fit the doll.
Despite the damage to the head you can see it was marked at the top "201". I searched the various books I have and found that this number is not widely attributed and even less so if restricted to baby doll types. In Coleman's Encyclopaedia of Dolls Volume 2 I found it attributed to Schützmeister & Quendt and the illustration seems to show a doll like this one. I have to emphasise though that this doll does not have any makers stamp ("SQ") - just the number. I also found this same doll mark advertised on the web in various auctions (and the doll's picture looked the same), and they suggested that it is made by Schützmeister & Quendt. (I noticed also that these dolls had short hair with similar white clothing and some are referred to as "he").