Doll-A-Day 2023 #45: Small People by Cecily Aunt Ella

   Today's doll is this very upper class lady. She's Aunt Ella...I think.

   I found this lady at a doll show a while back. I instantly recognized her as a 'Small People by Cecily' doll, but not one I had ever seen before.

This isn't her tag. I couldn't fight it out of her skirt. But her tag looks just like this. 

  You may have seen my post on my two 'Small People by Cecily' dolls, back in 2017. They're both about 4 inches tall, as are all the other Small People dolls I've seen, except for this lady.

Once again, not her tag, but the back of her tag is exactly the same. 

  I was told by the dealer that this doll was 'Aunt' somebody, and she was the only Small People doll bigger than 4 inches tall. (She's about 7 inches tall.) I don't remember what the Aunt's name was now, and the only one I can find online is Aunt Ella, so that has to be her name. 

  The bottom of the left foot of all the Small People dolls has Cecily's signature and the date they were made.

    The dolls are made from a special resin mixture and a mold sculpted by Cecily.

They all have thread hair and hand painted faces.

  Aunt Ella is obviously a society lady from the early 1900's. 

Her dress is definitely that era.

The dress has a lot of detail, including a lace insert in the front, and a petticoat.

She even has bloomers on.

This photo shows how her leg is starting to yellow. This is a weakness in the Small People by Cecily dolls. The glaze, or maybe it's just the peach coloured paint, has yellowed over the years.  

Her shoes are painted on, but have 'buttons' made from beads.

Her huge hat is very early 1900's too.

She has a big snazzy hairdo under that hat. 

She even has birds on her hat! 

  The bird on her hat is really typical of ladies' hats from about 1875 through the early 1900's. In fact, some birds, such as snowy egrets and the bird of  Paradise, were hunted to near extinction back in the days of the birds-on-ladies'-hats craze. Fortunately, there were some people paying attention, and not falling for the misinformation about hunting practices and numbers, and they called for a stop to the trend. Check out the number of dead birds on this list from a 1911 feather sale for the hat trade.

One of the hunting practices included killing the adults from entire nesting flocks, and leaving the young to die. This is not only cruel, but stupid. You're killing off next season's flock. What are you going to kill after that, you idiot?!

    The trend for feathers on hats was so popular that it graduated from just feathers, to entire wings on hats, and eventually, to entire taxidermied birds on hats! Some of the birds were mounted on springs, with their wings, also on springs, as separate pieces, so they could bounce and spring 'naturally'. Gross.   I first spotted Small People at a doll show years ago, when we were dealers. It took me years to actually own one, when I bought my first two at an estate auction. They have gone up in price over the years, and I was lucky to get Aunt Ella, and one other dolls we'll see tomorrow, for a really good price.

  That's today's doll. You've had a spoiler about tomorrow's doll. See you then.