UNIQUE COLLECTIBLE PORCELAIN DOLLS

Evinka porcelain dolls NEWS

Catalogue Porcelain dolls Evinka.com
9. 7. 2008

Download: Catalogue Porcelain dolls (PDF; 2,4 MB)

Magazine Panenka
20. 6. 2008

Dolls that make DREAMS COME TRUE - DOLL The International Doll Collector's Magazine
Oct / Nov 2006

Lucie Fošenbauerová never forgot the dream she had last spring, a dream where she was making dolls.

“In the morning I woke up with such a nice feeling from that dream that I immediately called my mother, an artist, and told her all about it,” she says. “I asked her if she would help me.”

Her mother, Irena Zábojová, is a life-long artist who illustrated children’s books, designed colouring books, sold her paintings and graphics, exhibited in galleries, and made ceramics. She is retired now but spends the entire summer in South Bohemia, where she has her studio, says Lucie.

When she a child, Lucie’s mother made paper dolls for her. The dolls would be put into various boxes decorated like cribs at school, which her friends copied. After a visit to the circus, she and another friend created their own circus from paper and fabric scraps.

“We had to improvise a lot; for example, the performers had glittery costumes from shiny chewing gum wrappers,” she recalls. “This was during the period of Communism (I was born in 1967), when we could only dream about Barbie dolls, and not even coloured paper was available. This is probably unimaginable for western Europeans, and today not even our twelve-year-old son understands. But this just forced us to improvise more, which helped develop our creativity."

Lucie studied fashion design and graduated from the Technical University in Liberec. She worked as a fashion designer for a Prague boutique. “After the so-called Velvet Revolution, fabric, toys, and goods began to be imported from the West,” she says.

After her maternity leave, Lucie decided she needed a different kind of work so she wouldn’t have to attend the necessary parties and fashion shows. So instead, she and her husband Tomáš Fošenbauer formed a company and Evinka Dolls was born. “We were later joined by my mother, Irena, thus fulfilling my dream,” says Lucie.

The family produces the dolls all themselves, with Irena sculpting a model of clay, and then a plaster cast is made. The casts are transported from Irena’s house in the country to the family home in Prague, where the porcelain is poured and sanded. Next, Lucie sews the doll bodies and costumes, hand-paints faces and Irena will hand-crochet and knit accessories, trims, stockings and animals.

The hard part of dollmaking, though, is that all their materials have to be found outside their country, so they pay more for shipment. “In the Czech Republic it is absolutely impossible to buy any of the materials we need for our work, not even in specialized shops for artists,” Lucie says. “We pay more for the transportation from abroad of plaster for casts than the plaster itself actually costs. It is not even possible to purchase specialized books or magazines here.

”Despite a rough start - “at the beginning we had no one to consult and we damaged a lot of material, especially during the firing of the porcelain,” - they are glad they didn’t give up. They attended their first doll fair in Nuremberg, “and were dazzled by the dolls of Hildegard Guenzel and Annette Himstedt,” says Lucie. They can’t think of anything they would rather do than make their own dolls.

“We didn’t allow ourselves to be discouraged by our initial failures,” Lucie says. “And when we held our first doll in our hands, everything was forgotten. We do this work because we enjoy it. We love all of our dolls and while it’s difficult to part with them, we hope they bring joy to others.”

All Evinka dolls are hand-painted porcelain with cloth bodies, hand-made human hair wigs and mouth-blown glass eyes (except where noted.) All are small editions of 30, except where noted, and come with hand-made accessories and clothing.

Anna 3 (left), Bara 2, Bara Baby (front) - Anna 3-is 63 cm. tall with synthetic hair and hand-embroidered blouse, €850.

Bara 2 is 57 cm. tall, with Czech accessories, edition of 20, €920.

Bara Baby is 51 cm. tall with synthetic hair and hand-embroidered clothes, edition of 20. Sold out.

Anna 1 is 68 cm. tall, €860.Lucinka 1 is 56 cm. tall with synthetic hair and hand-embroidered skirt, €750.

Bara 3 is 57 cm. tall, edition of 20, €860.Lucinka 4 is 58 cm. tall with synthetic hair and hand-embroidered clothing, €680.

Lucinka 2 is 57 cm. tall, €750.

Bara Little Red Riding Hood (left) and Anna Seaweed - Bara Red Riding Hood is 57 cm. tall, edition of 20, €1250. Anna Seaweed is 64 cm. tall, €780, both have synthetic hair.

I had a dream on dolls - MARIANNE magazine personality
20. 9. 2006

 

COLLECTOR DOLLS - CSA Review magazine
12. 9. 2006

Dolls form a part of both girls’ and collectors’ worlds. Original china dolls are the most valued ones at exchanges.

They are, in fact, so valuable that they are no longer given to kids to play with. Dolls increase in value over time while acting as a perfect decoration.

The Prague art studio Evinka offers complete collections of collector dolls, each a limited edition of 5 to 30 numbered pieces. The dolls are exclusively handcrafted and have genuine hair and embroidered clothing.

Press releases: TOP CLASS 3/2006 (CZ)
12. 5. 2006

Press releases: Vítejte DOMA 5/2006 (CZ)
2. 5. 2006

Press releases: Vitajte DOMA 3/2006 (SK)
6. 3. 2006