02 March 2024 , 09:00
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A creepy 18th century doll wearing a petticoat made from a newspaper article about the brutal murder of a maid has sold for £27,500.
The wooden doll belonged to Austin Smith and his late partner Margaret Harkins. The couple spent 75 years secretly collecting more than 1,000 dolls which filled the shelves of their home. The "largest and most valuable doll collection seen for 25 years" is going under the hammer in two sales and is set to fetch £500,000 at auction.
Last Thursday the 'maid murderess' doll sold for £27,500 smashing its estimate of £8,000 to £12,000. The doll, which was made around 1740, features a grim-faced woman wearing a flowing yellow gown with blue trim. In a dark twist, her petticoat is made up of pages of a broadsheet newspaper article about a mistress and her daughter murdering their maid.
A legless wooden doll from 1765, called Peggy, also exceeded its lower £10,000 estimate when it sold for £11,875. Austin and Margaret's remarkable collection has gone under the hammer at Special Auction Services (SAS) in Newbury. In the first of two auctions, the sale made a total of £315,425 with the second taking place in April.
The article about the murder (No credit)
Another doll in the collection (No credit)The couple began collecting in 1949 after they rescued a broken doll from a house contents sale in the West Country. Over the next seven decades the pair purchased more than 1,000 dolls - dating back to the 18th and 19th century - which were displayed all over their large house but rarely seen by anyone but themselves.
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Daniel Agnew, doll and teddy bear specialist at SAS, said he was "blown away" when he first saw the collection. He said: "Austin has been poorly, so I was shown around by a relative." "I was staggered by the first room which was full of the best antique dolls you could imagine, then shown a corridor full of wall mounted cabinets of small dolls, then another room of dolls' houses, a room of automata, then a further two rooms of dolls."
"Yet to be counted, there must be over 1,000 dolls, and many smaller items too. Truly a collector's dream." There are a further eight English 18th century wooden dolls in the collection, as well as early German wood dolls. These are known as Grodnerthal dolls, as they were carved in the Grodner Thal (valley) in southern Germany and Italian mountains.