Lacking a head opening to set the glass eyes,the eyes were set in place from the outside andgesso was used to hold them in place and fill inany openings or gaps. This area was thenpainted over with the flesh tone paint and ashellac finish placed over all. Shellac can darkenover time, but Sister Elizabeth’s seems to haveremained fresh in her two hundred plus years.Note the egg-shaped head ofSister Elizabeth. There appears tobe no evidence of her ever havinga wig. As early as the seventeenthcentury, scientists began tostudy the shape of the humanhead, study that resulted inmany theories of intelligenceand race, based solely on theshape of the head. The formof this wooden <strong>doll</strong> has beenseen before, with identicalpainting style. Note her fullred lips, the same red wasused on her nostrils andthe corner of her eyes.Many early wooden <strong>doll</strong>shave crude hands. SisterElizabeth’s hands aredelicate and it appearsthat the maker of the<strong>doll</strong> had reached nearperfection in theconstruction of their <strong>doll</strong>s.The pocket that tiesaround her waist isprobably a re-creationby Mrs. Bodmer.Extra detail is the earcarving, something onedoesn’t see on everyeighteenth centurywooden. Sister Elizabethhears no evil, sees noevil and has certainlynever spoken any evil.Standing fifteen inches tall, this wooden <strong>doll</strong> has had just the tip of her nose anda couple of fingertips repaired, which is a true miracle for a two hundred andfifty year old wooden <strong>doll</strong>. Whether or not to repair a wooden, such as SisterElizabeth, is a tough decision and in the case of this wooden, the repairs werealready completed and are nicely done. Sister Elizabeth’s costume, a habitrepresenting the Order of St. Clare is virtually untouched, except for thenineteenth century, brass, hook and eye and the trim around her neck. MarianneBodmer probably added the closure and trim, as this type of habit would nothave had a luxury item like a button. Possibly, a slight pin might have been usedfor the closure, the pin that is the root of the term “pin money”.Sister Elizabeth lackedfootwear and MarianneBodmer created her shoesthat are quite well done, buta Sister of the Order of St.Clare would probably nothave worn white kid leather,modest hemp sandals wouldbe more appropriate.39
At the time of the London sale, <strong>doll</strong> collecting hadn’treached its stride, so the world was shocked when Lord andLady Clapham sold for £16,000.00. To give you a perspectiveon price at that time, I have been told, a Bru bebe could havebeen bought on the open market for £150 or less and the topprice paid at a London auction was £1000 for any <strong>doll</strong>, to thatdate. Not only was the price paid for the two wooden <strong>doll</strong>sshocking to the general public, it was shocking to the antique<strong>doll</strong> collecting world as well. Lord and Lady Clapham werethe most expensive <strong>doll</strong>s in the world and instantly, there wasgreat public interest in the rare William and Mary-era <strong>doll</strong>s.The Department of Costume at the Victoria and AlbertMuseum deemed the <strong>doll</strong>s national treasures (due to thecomplete originality and extreme rarity of the <strong>doll</strong>sclothing) and with that, the Swiss buyer, MarianneBodmer, was not granted an export license for Lordand Lady Clapham. Mrs. Bodmer was quite reviledby the London press for trying to rob England of hernational treasures, but I believe that by herwillingness to pay such a huge price for the pair,Mrs. Bodmer cast a bright light of interest on the<strong>doll</strong>s and actually saved Lord and LadyClapham from possible obscurity. The two<strong>doll</strong>s might have kept their rich secrets foranother two hundred years, without theresearch fueled by their notoriety.The Victoria and Albert wasinterested strictly in the costuming ofthe <strong>doll</strong>s. In fact, Lord Clapham’scostume is the oldest complete malecostume in their extraordinarycollection of adult costume.Marianne Bodmer still had ten other<strong>doll</strong>s that she had purchased at theauction and her winnings included twoseventeenth-century paper mache <strong>doll</strong>sdressed as nuns, an unusual, small,wooden now known as the ClaphamBaby, an early eighteenth-centurywooden, another grand wood lady<strong>doll</strong>, plus the wooden nunshowcased here. Marianne Bodmerwas allowed to freely take those<strong>doll</strong>s from London, back to her homein Switzerland, which she did with thehope of adding the early <strong>doll</strong>s to theinventory of the <strong>doll</strong> museum she wasplanning. Unfortunately, her dreamnever materialized, as she became gravely ill. Upon herpassing, her entire collection was sold at auction in London, in1989, reflecting a truly spectacular group of items.Over the ten year period in which the <strong>doll</strong>s were in the care ofMrs. Bodmer, they were given some sensitive restoration and thiswe know because British author and <strong>doll</strong> historian, Mary Hillier,photographed the <strong>doll</strong>s the day they arrived at the Londonauction house, capturing them in the state of preservation inwhich they were discovered. It was also Mary Hillier that was toreveal long held secrets about Lord and Lady Clapham, theirformer owners and their family of <strong>doll</strong>s. It seemed the lot wasn’tjust some anonymous band of ancient toys. Through their dailylives as royal playthings, they witnessed much of Britain’stumultuous, royal and religious history.Through extensive genealogical and general research, MaryHillier discovered that Lord and Lady Clapham, at one time,belonged to the seventeenth-century writer Samuel Pepys,who was a close friend of King James II (a Stuart, anddescendant of the Scottish royal line) of England.Coincidentally, the men were born the same year. The <strong>doll</strong>swere passed down through the Pepys, Cockerell and Stuartlines right to the family members who consigned the <strong>doll</strong>s toauction in 1973.It is surmised by France’s leading authority on <strong>doll</strong>s andtoys, François Theimer, that Lord and Lady Clapham wereprobably played with by James III and Princess Louise MaryStuart and were dressed in France during the family’s exile inSaint Germain en Laye. I would have to agree with Frenchwriter and historian Theimer, that the Clapham <strong>doll</strong>s musthave been dressed at the time of the completion of themagnificent painting of those Stuart children by Nicolasde Larguiliere. The clothing of Lord and Lady Clapham isvirtually identical to the children’s in the superb painting.So, how are Lord and Lady Clapham linked to thewooden nun, other than sharing a drafty drawer fortwo hundred years? It is here that I should sharesome pertinent English history. In theseventeenth-century, England was divided inreligious conflict. The majority of the citizenswere Protestant, though many noble familiesheld onto the old faith, Catholicism. In 1685,King James (Stuart) II came to the throne afterhis brother Charles II. James was devotedlyCatholic, he had married first in 1659 and hadtwo daughters, Princesses Ann and Mary, butafter the untimely death of his wife, hemarried the young and beautiful Italiannoblewoman Mary of Modena in 1673. Shewas a mere fifteen years of age at the time,was devoutly religious and had wished tobecome a nun, as it was not uncommonfor noblewomen to go in to the church.For many, the convent was a very safeplace and it sheltered women fromhaving to go through unwantedmarriage and childbirth, which inthose days resulted in death a fairpercentage of the time.However, young ladies like Mary ofThe back of the costume is beautifully monogrammed Modena had no say in their destiniesK A; this is the fanciest work on the entire costume. and she was promised to marry KingJames II by the French King Louis XIV,with the hopes of a great alliance between Britain and France.The first child to be born of the union died at birth in 1688.When she next gave birth to a son, James III, the Englishbecame fearful of a Catholic succession. The governmentadvisedly invited the King’s oldest daughter (from his firstwife) Mary, married to William of Orange of Holland, tobecome the King and Queen. They accepted and the reign ofWilliam and Mary began.Queen Mary of Modena disguised herself as a washerwomanand the baby Prince as a bundle of laundry and fled to Franceand safety. King James II did later join her in France. KingJames II died in 1703 and Queen Mary of Modena in 1718 afterhaving lived a very long life for those days. Many of hercontemporaries noted that she died the death of a Saint.40
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