doll

doll

doll

2: FURNISHINGS

TOY:

Seminole

Multicolored doll with bright striped clothing and black head dress.

Multicolored doll with bright striped clothing and black head dress. Head is round and body is conical, both constructed of palmetto fiber bark, hand sewn with a single strand of pink embroidery floss and stuffed with unknown fiber. The face is embroidered with a straight red mouth and black and white eyes using multiple strands of embroidery floss. Black cloth, attached to a stiff form (possibly cardboard) represents an elaborate mid-twentieth century Seminole women’s hairstyle. A strand of beads is wound three times around the neck and is composed of white, orange, black, and yellow beads in a seemingly random pattern. The doll is dressed in a skirt and cape made of cotton or cotton-blend commercially woven fabric. From the bottom the skirt is made of a strip of navy blue that is folded over double and pressed so both raw edges are sewn in the seam with the next strip. The next strip is wider and bright yellow with two evenly spaced rows of dark purple rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread. Next is a narrow strip of aqua blue with a single centered row of red rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread. The next wider strip is pieced patchwork with khaki and bright blue in a pattern that looks like the letter ‘H’ set at a slant. The next narrow strip is black with one centered row of white rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread. The next wider strip is bright yellow with two evenly spaced rows of red rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread. The next narrow strip is dark purple with a centered row of white rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread. The next wider strip is pieced patchwork in dark purple, bright yellow, red, and bright blue in a modified checkerboard pattern set at a slant. The next narrow strip is lavender, the last wider strip, that continues to the doll’s neck, is bright yellow with a single row of red rick rack, appliquéd with matching thread near the bottom of the strip. The cape covers the top yellow and lavender strips. The cape and skirt are sewn into the same neck band and composed of a strip of bright yellow with the bottom edge folded under and the top edge tucked into the beads. From the bottom, the cape is made of one medium strip of bright blue that is folded over double and pressed so that both edges are sewn in the seam with the next strip with two evenly spaced rows of black rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread and a very wide strip of red with two rows of bright yellow rick rack trim appliquéd with matching thread near the bottom of the strip. All interior seams are unfinished and all sewing on the clothing is machine stitched. Both garments have a single seam sewn up the back. The palmetto bark fiber body has no arms and no legs.

created for sale to tourists, outsiders /
entertainment artifact /
decorative

13” T

5.5” W

3” D

fiber(palmetto bark) cloth(cotton or cotton poly blend) thread(cotton or cotton poly blend) bead(glass) cardboard?

sewn(machine)(hand) pieced (patchwork)

costumed(bead)(embroid)(appliqué)

Seminole

excellent

1973-18-0002

2913dl/081

object

FL

USA

NA

2008 DEAC REV: Rachel Biars; 2010 RECAT: Jodine Perkins

Cotton blends would be available in the 1970’s. (Wikipedia: Synthetic Fabric)

Downs, Dorothy. 1995. Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccousuloe Indians, p.211-219.
Gainesville: University Press of Florida (on Seminole dolls)

Wikipedia article on synthetic fiber: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fiber.