Guildhall Museum Collection 3-4 Armand Marseille Bisque- Composition Body 3184

Armand Marseille was a company in Köppelsdorf,

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

, Germany, that manufactured porcelain headed ( bisque) dolls from 1885 onwards.

Location

Köppelsdorf is a part of

Sonneberg Sonneberg in Thuringia, Germany, is the seat of the Sonneberg district. It is in the Franconian south of Thuringia, neighboring its Upper Franconian twin town Neustadt bei Coburg. Sonneberg became known as the "world toy city", and is home to ...

, in the

Landkreis Sonneberg Sonneberg is a ''Kreis'' (district) in the south of Thuringia, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the west clockwise) the districts Hildburghausen, Saalfeld-Rudolstadt, and the Bavarian districts Kronach and Coburg. History The district wa ...

, in Thuringia due north of

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

. For fifty years the wooded countryside formed the border between the two Germanys, Sonneberg lying in the

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. Sonneberg was the centre of the German toy-making industry; it is the home of the , many doll manufacturers and

PIKO Piko (stylized PIKO, pronounced "peek-oh") is a German model train brand in Europe that also exports to the United States and other parts of the world. History Founded in 1949, PIKO was once a state-owned enterprise in the German Democratic R ...

model railways.

History

Armand Marseille was born in 1856 in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, Russia, the son of an architect, and emigrated to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

with his family in the 1860s. In 1884 he bought the toy factory of Mathias Lambert in Sonneberg. He started producing porcelain dolls' heads in 1885, when he acquired the Liebermann & Wegescher porcelain factory in Köppelsdorf. In 1919 the firm merged with

Ernst Heubach Ernst Heubach was a company in Köppelsdorf, Thuringia, Germany, that manufactured porcelain-headed bisque dolls from 1885 onwards Location Köppelsdorf is a part of Sonneberg, in the Landkreis Sonneberg, in Thuringia due north of Nuremberg. For ...

but they separated in 1932. The combined firm was known as the "Vereinigte Köppelsdorf Porzellanfabrik vorm. Armand Marseille und Ernst Heubach". Maximum production was 1000 dolls heads a day. Production continued to around 1930.

Works

The company manufactured bisque heads from moulds for their own dolls and for other doll-makers. They never made the bodies but brought them in from other manufacturers. Mould 390 and mould 370 are the most common. 390 was a head mould that was fitted to a

composition body Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

; 370 had identical features but was a head and shoulders mould that fitted to a stuffed leather (kid) body. This mould was used for over thirty years. The dolls are stamped with a variety of marks that usually contain the initials A.M. Armand Marseille made a large variety of baby dolls, dolly-faced child dolls and character dolls. Brand names include Floradora, Queen Louise, Darling Dolly, the Dream Baby and Just Me. The 1894 Floradora design came in various sizes from to .

References

Notes

Bibliography

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External links

Doll manufacturing companies Manufacturing companies established in 1885 1885 establishments in Germany {{Doll-stub