The doll is one of a pair acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1943. Dressed in a white silk and lace gown, it is not a plaything but would have been intended to display the fashion of the time in an up-market London dressmaking establishment. The hat is labelled inside, Kate Reily Ltd, Dover Street London; England, 1903. Kate Reily was one of the best known court dressmakers at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century. She also had an establishment New York. This doll may have been displayed at an exhibition to show off Kate Reily’s dressmaking skills.

The Pierotti family originally came from Italy and the founding member of the wax doll-makers was Domenico Pierotti . He was born in Italy in 1760 but had an English mother. Domenico came to England when he was ten for medical treatment and stayed with an aunt who was a professional maker of decorative plaster mouldings and wax figures. It was she who trained him in these skills as he recovered. The doll making business he founded was taken over by his son Henry (b.1809) and it was Henry’s grandson, Charles Ernest Pierotti (1860-1942) who made this particular doll. Charles was the last practising member of this famous wax doll-making family.

The Pierotti doll-makers sometimes used friends and family members as models for their dolls. This doll is exquisitely made, with fine beautiful features that are almost certainly modelled on a real person.