ANTIQUE BLACK AMERICANA JOHN GRUELLE'S BELOVED BELINDY RAG DOLL1926SIGNED

T This is a wonderful Black Americana Raggedy Ann style doll. I no nothing about her except she has been a wonderful addition to my collection over the years. She is in wonderful condition. The apron appears to be...

The clothes are faded in areas and the elastic on the skirt and pantaloons was either rotted or come apart over the years. In black stamped ink it reads John Groelle's Own "Beloved Belindy". It was distributed by a novelty company out of New York City but I can't make out exactly what it says. She is approximately 18 tall. This would be a great addition to any doll collector. I will try to answer any questions you may have but I have taken alot of pictures. Please feel free to ask any questions. I found a little history on John Gruelle that I thought you might like to read... Quite interesting about how he created the first "Raggedy Ann" doll.

How Raggedy Ann Was Created: Johnny Gruelle (photo). Is best known for creating Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy, the whimsical dolls and storybook characters that escorted him to national prominence in only several years' time. John Barton Gruelle was born in 1880 in Arcola, Illinois. His father, Richard Buckner Gruelle, was a self-taught portrait and landscape painter, musician and writer, who extolled regional values and aesthetics, ones that would profoundly influence Johnny and his younger brother and sister, Justin and Prudence.

Johnny Gruelle's first book commission came in 1914, a set of illustrations for an ambitious volume of Grimms' fairy tales. As passed on from generation to generation in the Gruelle family, the original Raggedy Ann doll may have belonged to Johnny Gruelle's mother. The story goes that Gruelle's daughter, Marcella, found her in an attic storage chest during one of her visits to Grandma. The doll had no face, so, it was her Dad, Johnny Gruelle, who put the famous black eyes, red triangle nose, and separated mouth on the original doll and, Grandma made a new dress. Marcella Gruelle was a sickly child and had been suffering from the effects of the powerful smallpox vaccine.

To keep up her spirits, Johnny Gruelle told her stories about Raggedy Ann to keep his daughter entertained. In 1915, Marcella at about age 13 or 14, succumbed to the infection and died.

This was a devastating experience for the whole family but, Johnny Gruelle immersed himself in his work and began putting in written form the many stories her used to tell Marcella. Gruelle may have specifically anticipated the potential for a commercial "folk" doll or, he may simply have been advised to seek protection for the family rag doll on which he had rendered a new and original face.

In any event, in 1915, Johnny Gruelle applied for a design patent for a slue-footed doll he called Raggedy Ann (photo). Though they predated by three years Gruelle's first published books about Raggedy Ann, these first trademarked dolls launched Gruelle's little yarn-haired moppet as a commercial entity.

To the Chicago based P. Volland Company and by fall of that year the first editions were rolling off the presses. The book's covers featured front-and-back views of a Raggedy Ann doll, which the Volland Company had also begun producing to sell along with the books.

Two years later, in 1920, Johnny Gruelle created Raggedy Andy, who made his literary debut in his own volume, "Raggedy Andy Stories", and also joined Raggedy Ann as a commercially available Volland doll. These events set Johnny Gruelle squarely on the path to becoming a well-known children's author and illustrator. Gruelle's early artistic style is romantic, almost dreamlike, and his use of color borrows heavily from the gold-and-violet palettes of his father and other early-twentieth-century American fine artists. His later illustrations are bright and fluid. Facial expressions and body movements, be they of dwarfs, fairies, dolls, or mortals, are crisply captured with pen and brush. As an artist and a writer, Johnny Gruelle was an astute observer and a skilled adaptor; a bearer of tradition as well as an innovator. As a result, he created and presented the kinds of characters and themes that felt simultaneously familiar and brand new to his audience. He was a man of many talents and persuasions: writer, cartoonist, musician, songwriter, toy designer, businessman, spiritualist, and nature-lover.

Above all, he was an artisan with an astonishing and uncanny ability to communicate with children and young adults, teaching them through his many stories. Many of his story themes delt with love, caring and sharing and taught respect for others, especially our parents. His famous stories of these loveable dolls have amused and fascinated millions of children and the "young at heart". The item "ANTIQUE BLACK AMERICANA JOHN GRUELLE'S BELOVED BELINDY RAG DOLL1926SIGNED" is in sale since Sunday, February 28, 2016.

This item is in the category "Collectibles\Cultures & Ethnicities\Black Americana\Dolls & Bears". The seller is "*skittle*d*doo*" and is located in Cottonwood, Arizona. This item can be shipped to United States, to Canada, to United Kingdom, DK, RO, SK, BG, CZ, FI, HU, LV, LT, MT, EE, to Australia, GR, PT, CY, SI, to Japan, to China, SE, KR, ID, to Taiwan, TH, to Belgium, to France, to Hong Kong, to Ireland, to Netherlands, PL, to Spain, to Italy, to Germany, to Austria, RU, IL, to Mexico, to New Zealand, SG, NO, SA, UA, AE, QA, KW, BH, HR, MY, CL, CO, CR, DO, PA, TT, GT, SV, HN, JM.