This is an excerpt from the book "The toys, what's inside" (1868), reprinted few, Henri Nicolle devoted to the exhibition of 1867. Poupendol drew a long extract on Huret dolls which a site has already been spent.
François Theimer, doll expert, had organized a superb exhibition for this topic at the  Hotel  Ambassadeurs in November 2008. We were
 exceptionally allowed to photograph these wonders. All these pictures that enrich this article are from this magnificent exhibition.
 Enjoy, they are rare and will be even more over time .....





"The dolls are saying Huret, named after their inventor, created a new industry in the luxury trade dolls, and, as such,
they have marked their place in the history of toys

You see them at the Exhibition , you had already seen the Boulevard Montmartre, showing their childish graces the front of their own home. they are of little blond, eyes glazed porcelain in Figure and are dressed in little girl in the latest fashion of Updated: short skirts, bare legs and turned shod with open shoes, or fur coats, sleeves and boots Hungarian inaccordance season. Vienne after the carnival, bearing as Perrette,
 simple cotillion
even cute shoes with blue socks, they are disguised
as Norman dairy and cotton cap on his ear makes all mischievous.



în ordinary times, miss living in that beautiful furniture to her size, receives her friends and their offer tea service in miniature. 


But we must believe that bedtime has come: the wearing of this night, all in a big long shirt, next to a cradle which lacks nothing inside or pillow lace, nor quilted coverlet, or, outside the muslin curtains lined with pink, "That, we close these curtains are wise, young ladies, and do not wake up your mommy."

Hats, gloves, jewelry, dresses and body linen, chairs, beds and bedding, the trousseau nor does the furniture is poor; I see even if by chance the young person is traveling, her trunk compartment and her bag in hand.






In the mind of the inventor, who is a woman, the first doll she delivered almost naked, had to be dressed by the child who was in possession, but the fingers of little girls are clumsy and soon obliged to assist them, the moms who had other things to do, asked to buy clothes made. It was then that dressmakers, furriers, shoemakers, cabinetmakers an end, and ... layetiers all trades worked on models in this new industry that has Huret dolls gave birth and who created both special workers because it is noticeable that the ordinary seamstresses, for example, refuse to work for the dolls.






The job is not bad, however, women earn from March to April francs per day. It was founded in the vicinity of the Rue de Choiseul, houses of making dolls that have been repeatedly fortunes.
The
Huret doll itself was an improvement on the doll skin which has dethroned king and who was movement. Gutta-percha used in its manufacture allows casting aside its various parts, arms and legs, after being assembled by mounting them on the nuts
which are obtained through the joints.

 


The "Art of being a grandfather".
Jeanne and Georges on the knees of Victor Hugo


We know what it is that the gutta-percha, a rubber cousin, who, like him, runs an incision from a tree native to India. The best gutta-percha seems to be that of Ceylon, its applications in industry are numerous, it has the disadvantage of coming from far away, therefore be very expensive, and far more expensive than the natives know bring in the blocks shipped, earth and stones of a certain weight. It certainly hear the land use,
and we see that as long as anyone wants to go, he finds people to understand the trade.

 


 
Anyway, the price of the gutta-percha , which varies from 11 F. to 14  F. en kilogram, explains the high price of the doll Huret, and the figure of 12 to 1500 dolls, relatively small, its annual production.

But the doll was made and the advantage to survive accidents that are waiting for the dolls in this world. When the skin once received a scratch on his escape through the wound, gradually topic was losing blood, the body becomes flaccid, members boning, it was all over, and before that dreadful decline, it There was no doctor to plead, he was crying child, the less shock front still outweighed the head and the tears could not read anything there.
 

 
Today, what is a cracked head ! The merchant sees that . Is it serious ? He brought to the factory in L'Isle-Adam a bareheaded all similar and applies it to the place of another. If the hair of the former has received no damage, he planted even on the news, so that the eye of a mother can not be mistaken, it's the same girl. Is it an arm, a leg, they shall also well and, whatever the fracture, there is a remedy for everything, and yet the hospice Miss Huret sometimes see rare cases, one witness which it keeps the memory clinic.
 

 


It was winter at the corner of a stove: a small girl holding her doll would get cold feet, he was introduced with care in the mouth heat. Gutta-percha melts at a certain temperature. Horror! when the child wanted her baby bed warmed, the toe was sticking to the pan, and as she made an effort to remove it, as it was pulling, leg lengthening. The doll, with legs a yard, arrived from the provinces with a letter which contained many recommendations
about the poor crippled, and who said:
 "I have so much grief to part with her when she is so sick. Miss do not do too much pain, and if it should be long, give me,
I laughed at his new
".


If I was the least bit moralistic, this little letter which reflects the gentle awakening in a child of maternal feelings, give me a natural transition to protest against the customs of other dolls of my time.

 



It shows me at this time, dressed in little ladies, posting an insolent luxury dresses trains; cheeky, they look at me through a pince-nez, and walk, a little dog under his arm, with "follow- me young man "hung back, I blush for them.







When the doll was a baby, the child was her little mother, and she paid her care, according to those she received, as it were learning of his future role in society. Today she can no longer be the maid and these beautiful ugly ladies as may learn a lot. As we already said that no more children, before possibly, probably, we can say that there is more than dolls. One, undoubtedly, is the consequence of the other, and it probably still enough to allow me to pass abruptly to another subject.

One more word yet on the hair are Huret dolls. The Astrakhan was first tried for hair, but he had ears which made them give up, it could also due to a line, cut the little wig in the middle of the back of the animal. Today, manufacturing makes use of the goat of Tibet."



That's good information and photos that you will learn much, surely, on the famous Huret dolls that can not will soon have hundreds more but by tens or less ... ... ..! Although those that exist are the subject of the greatest care of their owners and are fairly low, which is normal for their rarity, importance and beauty bunch of manufacture.

Hélène BUGAT-PUJOL

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.  Photos D.Bugat-Pujol, but because of their subject © any reproduction of photos,
even partial, is strictly forbidden except Mr. François THEIMER's special, particular 
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