Another Peg Wooden Doll

The first picture shows my friend Bonnie's two pegwoodens. She told me if I made a dress for the one with two legs, I could have the damaged one to keep. So I did that: the blue dressed doll is hers. The picture of the broken doll shows the new leg I carved for her--when it was painted, it was hard even for me to tell which leg was the one I'd made. The doll with the green dress is mine. Both of the dolls are 11 1/2 " tall, the size that most I've seen have been. I knew nothing of these dolls when I first saw them , but have since learned a lot about them. They were made in Grodner Tal (valley) in what used to be Bavaria, but which is now part of Germany. They came in lots of sizes, from 1 1/2" to 17" tall, and the paint on them has lead in it. My friend told me that the person she'd purchased them from said they were made for "coal miner's children," which could have been true, as the dolls were sold for around a penny each and might have been sold in the mines' "company stores." They were always sold without clothing, and Queen Victoria, as a child and with help from her nanny, dressed many of these dolls and they now reside in a museum in England. I would very much like to have a couple more of these in different sizes, but have not been sucessful in bidding on any of the smaller ones. I DO have one small pegwooden doll made by James Orem, and I also have one of his larger "tuck comb" dolls. Health issues have forced James to quit making these dolls, I'm sorry to say. I named my peg wooden "Jane" after the pegwooden doll house doll in Beatrix Potter's "Tale of Two Bad Mice.