It was 1908 and the world of dolls was in an uproar. Because fresh on the doll scene was the new “art character” doll. It was the doll as art, the doll as a realistic portrait of a child, just like a canvas portrait. And, it had doll makers asking themselves, what canvas portrait ever had glass eyes? Almost overnight the world of dolls closed its eyes on glass eyes and set its sights on “the painted eye”.

Eyes were painted upper glancing, down- glancing, slightly askew, googly, or even winkish. Their color could be shaded or even multi-hued. The sockets could be flat, defined or even so deeply intaglio-cut they seemed intensely real. Whichever, the dolls had a character expression that was unachievable in their glass-eyed cousins.

Many of today’s most sophisticated collectors seek the painted eye characters, both for their characterization and for their rarity. The legendary collection of Madalaine Selfridge, to be auctioned by Theriault’s on Saturday, October 11, 2008 at the Ritz- Carlton Hotel in Half Moon Bay, California, offers wonderful choices in this genre, some so rare as to be virtually unknown, others a wonderful opportunity for the collector just entering this genre.

And what became of the painted eye movement? Sadly, the doll makers had miscalculated the desires of children who, after-all, preferred the “real” glass eyes. One by one, the painted eye models were abandoned or else modified for insertion of glass eyes*. By 1914, a mere six years later, the painted eye movement was all but over, leaving today’s collectors with only rare examples of these dolls as art.