Saturday & Sunday
Preview 9AM Eastern • Auction Begins at 11AM Eastern
The ballroom glittered, gleaming with the candlelight from chandeliers, sparkling with the rustling silk costumes of society’s finest grand dames and young debutantes, all set against the background undertones of gentlemen’s murmuring intrigues set to orchestra overtures.
Upon entering a show, an auction, a museum, you gaze in general awe at the entire room, and then, only then, you spot the one doll that speaks to you.
And then she enters the room.
Voices hushed. Only an occasional gasp could be heard. Faces turned to her, some in awe, some astonishment, others brimming with envy. She slowly lowered her mask, and her beauty was revealed.
Different times now. Different scenes. Yet every collector knows the feeling of the moment when “she enters the room”. Upon entering a show, an auction, a museum, you gaze in general awe at the entire room, and then, only then, you spot the one doll that speaks to you.
It may be an exquisite and elegant French poupée
such as featured on the cover of the Theriault’s October 28/29 Marquis auction “And Then She Entered the Room”, made special by her extraordinary coiffure and accessories and costumes. It is this style of doll that highlights the auction, with beautiful poupées by Huret, Rohmer, Jumeau, Bru and Clement. And then there is the environment of the doll. The auction abounds with an exceptional collection of antique doll furniture, some unique maitrise models, some from prestige Paris shops such as Maison Giroux and Au Nain Bleu, and with decorative accessories including bountiful porcelains and gilt ormolu. Too, there are costumes! The antique costumes you seek for the dolls you already cherish are plentiful in the auction, along with everso-rare tiny accessories.
The auction also includes beautiful French bébés and mignonettes, German bisque character dolls, American cloth dolls, Neopolitan figures and accessories, and hundreds of other treasures. There are nearly 600 lots in the important two-day auction.
Your attendance at the auction is welcomed at Theriault’s showroom gallery in Annapolis. You can also watch the auction live from your home (and bid, too!). Attending, absentee, telephone, and live internet bidding choices are available. For more information or to order your catalog call Theriault’s at 410-224-3655 or email info@theriaults.com. x
Get
Face2Live is Theriault’s new service that allows you to view on live video feed closeups of a few dolls you are most interested in. Call 410-224-3655 or email info@theriaults.com to schedule an appointment. Then simply go to theriaults.com and click the handy button on the side of the main page. From there you will be connected to one of our staff on video chat (you do not have to be on video yourself). A great way to get a closeup look of features and face in a live private video session. Available Monday through Friday 9AM-4PM Eastern.
x Public Preview October 28-29 from 9AM-11AM immediately preceding that day’s auction.
x Visit www.theriaults.com and link to Theriault’s YouTube Channel for a video presentation by Florence Theriault.
x Visit www.theriaults.com and link to ISSUU at the bottom of the site to view a digital copy of the catalog.
x Visit www.theriaults.com and link to “Auctions” to see each doll in the catalog.
x Call Theriault’s at 410-224-3655 and make an appointment for a private video viewing of your preferred dolls.
At Theriault’s Gallery in Annapolis, Maryland. Preview 9AM Eastern • Auction Begins at 11AM Eastern
Kewpie? What is that funny little creature all about? Once, when asked to describe the role of Kewpie, its creator Rose O’Neill said these simple words. “To Be Merry and Kind”. A good message for all, and such was the enthusiastic sentiment that set Blain Kukevitch upon his quest for Kewpie several decades ago. His collection of more than 200 rarities is presented at Theriault’s November 18, 2023 Marquis auction. Collectors are invited to attend the auction in person at Theriault’s new gallery at 2148 Renard Court in Annapolis, MD 21401 or can bid absentee, live by telephone or live on the internet. A live video/audio of the auction is also aired. A full color catalog is available for $49. Note: If you order a 10-Issue Subscription before October 28th, you will receive both catalogs counting towards one catalog.
For more information or to order or subscribe to the auction catalogs call 410-224-3655 or visit www.theriaults.com. x
“She has the secret of infernal youth”, O’Henry wrote of Rose O’Neill. The same might be said of Kewpies, the eternally, infernally youthful creatures that made her famous. Although, in 1909, when Kewpies arrived in the pages of Ladies Home Journal, Rose O’Neill was already an established and respected artist and author in literary circles, it was the extraordinary Kewpie craze, lasting nearly three decades in its first rush, that brought her widespread fame and extraordinary wealth.
Imagine the direction that O’Neill’s art might have taken without the omnipresent Kewpies to distract and demand her time and attention. In 1905 while she and her then husband, Harry Wilson sojourned on the Isle of Capri, her work grabbed the attention of M. Dubufe, the French president of Societe des Beaux Arts. Dubufe arranged an exhibition of her work in Paris and she was elected a member of that prestigious artist’s society. O’Neill returned to Paris many times in the next twenty years, and, in fact, there is a close
resemblance of many of her drawings during that time to other Parisian society illustrators such as Poulbot whom she surely knew.
Rose O’Neill would be the first to declare that Kewpies did not spring uniquely from her pen. In fact, in a January 1914 article in Woman’s Home Companion she gave credit to fellow artist and author Palmer Cox whose bug-eyed and humorous creatures, the Brownies, had partly inspired the Kewpie design. Her other inspirations were closer at hand. It is said that her brother Clink, eternally youthful and loving, inspired the nature of Kewpie, and that Doodledog was based upon the real puppy that came to live with her during her sojourn in Capri in the summer of 1905.
Rose O’Neill was a creature of fantasy, as much as her Kewpies, and she played to the role.
Friends described her as an Isadora Duncan of the pen, and she made famous the daily wearing of loose-
fitting flowing robes that she referred to as her “aura”. Her letters, a voluminous correspondence, are peppered with extravagant romantic phrases and drawings. Her many homes, in Italy, at Washington Square in New York, at Carabas in Connecticut and certainly Bonniebrook, the family home in the Ozarks, had an open door policy that excluded no friend and she reveled in the resulting surprises of everyday life that this engendered. The 1920’s Paris soirees surely had a rival in the parlor gatherings at the O’Neill homes; friends would come to visit for a day, and remain for a year. She was dreamy, poetic, and ethereal, and it was a persona she cherished.
Yet she was also practical, and oh, she was a worker. Bemoaning the lack of time for her “serious art” O’Neill toiled incessantly to keep alive the spirit of her popular and profitable Kewpies. The correspondence of O’Neill
with American poet Orrick Johns, illustrates her warring personalities, a generosity of spirit and its ensuing need for money at battle with the desire for poetic freedom.
Looking at her work today, O’Neill seems apolitical or, at least, international in spirit. Her important bisque Kewpies were, after all, produced in Germany during the period of WWI, and her only reference to that war was to speak of “those horrible British” who torpedoed a whole shipload of her first bisque Kewpies on their way through the English Channel. The myriad of Kewpie soldiers, created as part of her bisque line, were not soldiers in the traditional sense; their only duty was to fight dreariness and ill-will. The only social movement she overtly supported was woman’s suffrage about which she marched in protest for the vote, and wrote and illustrated many protest pieces.
Yet, lately, researchers have begun again to study her work with a notion that perhaps the Kewpie stories have a larger significance. They contain timeless and universal messages of good spirit, generosity and acceptance, peppered with a gentle sardonic view of humanity. Perhaps, it is thought, Kewpie was not just for kids, after all. x
Rose O’Neill was already an established and respected artist and author in literary circles, it was the extraordinary Kewpie craze, lasting nearly three decades in its first rush, that brought her widespread fame and extraordinary wealth.
Start with the more than 500 wonderful dolls for auction — a veritable museum, indeed. And then consider these:
The visual joy of beautiful dolls in fine displays — dolls as they should be shown.
The good time laughter and bidding with auctioneers
Stuart Holbrook and Luke Theriault.
The delight at greeting old friends and meeting new ones.
And don’t forget the hot fudge sundaes!
Beautiful dolls in a fun and laughterfilled weekend. What could possibly ever be better than this?
If you really just can’t come in person, here’s the closest thing. You can watch and listen (and bid, if you wish) to the entire live streamed auction via Proxibid. Visit www.theriaults.com
Plan to spend the day at the auction in the comfort of your home. Watch and listen to the auction live, and get ready to bid live when the dolls of your choice come up for auction.
Every Theriault’s auction brims with new discoveries for your collection. So why not join in on the bidding fun? It’s easy. Choose your favorite way to bid and prioritize your choices.
Choose your dolls, and then call our office to make a reservation for telephone bidding. We call you when your dolls of choice come up for bidding, and you bid just as though you were there.
Place your bids right up to the time of auction by mail, fax, email or phone. Advise us of the lots and your top bid. We will bid for you fairly and competitively.
also now offer scheduled private video previews.
Timed auctions, where every lot opens at $50 and it’s all up to you, the bidders, to take action from there. Hundreds of dolls, costumes, accessories and related ephemera are offered. The timed auction begins closing at 7PM ET.
Highlighted by Ginny and Wendy-kins, still other Alexander dolls, Toni, Mary Hoyer, Harriet Ayers, and hundreds more. Watch for the auction to be posted at Theriaults.com on October 30.
Barbie private collections are offered in this timed auction event including hundred of dolls, costumes, accessories, and related Barbiana are offered. Watch for the auction to be posted at Theriaults.com on November 15.
And you are welcome to join us in person for the auction at our gallery or bid live on the internet or by phone.
What is Rendezvous? Well, it’s just that, a mid-week evening auction event that’s short and sweet, yet filled with delightful treasures. Just enough for the insatiable collector to get them through the work week.
So watch for Rendezvous Return in the fall. Most auctions offer a variety of antique dolls and playthings, but here are three specialty Rendezvous auction you won’t want to miss.
x Wednesday, October 18.
Artist Dolls. All your favorites including R. John Wright, Maggie Iacono, Sally Cutts, and many more.
x Wednesday November 8.
The Holidays beckon! Wonderful Christmas decorations and ephemera including an important group of Erzebirge wooden miniature ornaments by Wendt and Kuhn from the private collection of Jonathan Green.
x Wednesday, November 15.
The world of Kathe Kruse. More Kruse dolls from the Jonathan Green collection from post-war to contemporary.
Wednesday, October 18
Wednesday,
November 8
Wednesday, November 15
It’s just half a day and then you’re on your way. But it’s not for the faint of heart And it’s the best kept secret in the doll world.
It’s Theriault’s famous Ten2Go doll auction, now in its 35th year.
And here’s what it is. Simple. 400 lots are sold in just three hours. One hour inspection before the auction. Caveat emptor. Every lot starts at $10. Some lots are treasures and others are not.
It’s what old-fashioned auctions used to be. No absentee bids, no telephone bidding, no internet bidding. Only you and the others in the room.
Friday, November 3, 2023
Collectors tell
Not to worry. For more than 50 years, Theriault’s has been the “little engine that could” in helping collectors and families accomplish that task effortlessly.
We listen to you. We evaluate your dolls and lay out a plan to accomplish your goals. And then, if you agree, we do all the work.
Our full-time professional staff travels to your home, inventories your property, carefully packs and transports in our own secure vehicles, prepares and markets your dolls for auction,
and presents them to collectors worldwide whose trust in Theriault’s is borne out by the prices they are willing to bid.
You just sit back and breathe a sigh of relief.
Stuart Holbrook,
President of Theriault’s,is traveling throughout the country now, visiting with collectors by appointment. If you have questions or would like to schedule a noobligation complimentary appointment, call Theriault’s at 410-224-3655 or email info@theriaults.com.
Featuring educational videos about antique dolls, up-to-date doll news, and great resources.
Theriaults.com always has something new, with great information and highlights in a clean and simple place to discover them. Explore our upcoming auctions, stunning doll photography, and invaluable resources for collectors. All in one easy-to-navigate website.
Go
DOLLS
❒ “And Then She Entered the Room” Marquis Auction Catalog Featuring Private Collections — At Theriault’s Gallery, Annapolis, MDOctober 28-29, 2023. $69.
❒ “To Be Merry and Kind - Kewpie Collection” Auction Catalog — At Theriault’s Gallery, Annapolis, MD - November 18, 2023. $49.
❒ Ten-Issue Subscription
Receive the next ten doll auction catalogs at a 60% reduction of single-issue price. US: $329. Canada: $459. International: $499
2024 Calendar of Dolls
Featuring beautiful antique dolls from the Rosalie Whyel Museum. Sixteen full-color photographs featuring gorgeous antique dolls. 24” x 12”. $22.
Subscribe Now to Theriault’s Award Winning Catalogs for fabulous savings and the assurance that the catalog you want will never be “sold out”. On a ten issue subscription, the individual catalogs are only $29.90 – that’s a whopping 60% savings!
❒ 2024 Calendar of Dolls (16 months thru March 2025): $22
*Maryland residents add 6% sales tax.
SATURDAY
October 28, 2023
We welcome absentee bidding, live telephone bidding, and live bidding on the internet. Too, you can “tunein” to the online auction and watch and listen to the entire event.
Questions? Give us a call and we’ll help you choose the bidding option that is best for you.
The auction will take place at the Theriault’s Studio, 2148 Renard Court, Annapolis, Maryland 21401. For auction info call Theriault’s at 410-224-3655 M-F 9AM-5PM EST or go online to theriaults.com. Email queries to info@theriaults.com.
