Nesting Mothers

QUESTION: My mother has a substantial collection of what I call “Nesting Mothers.” These are the little Russian nesting dolls that often appear at flea markets. One day, this collection will be mine, so I’d like to know more about them. When and where did they originate? Are they valuable? And are there different kinds?

ANSWER: Those are all good questions. First, the correct name for your mom’s Russian nesting dolls is Matryoshka dolls, also sometimes referred to as Matreshka dolls. And while they’re commonly associated with Russia, they didn’t originate there.

A professional artist and folk crafts painter named Sergei Malyutin, who worked on the Abramtsevo estate of Savva I. Mamontov, made the first sketches of a nesting doll based on one his wife brought home from a visit to Honshu, Japan, in the latter part of the 19th century. However, the Japanese say that it was a Russian monk who first brought the idea of making nesting dolls to Japan. Whatever the case, Russian craftsmen liked the idea, and Matryoshka dolls came into being.

The first dolls looked a bit different than the ones made today. Malyutin intended his doll to depict a round-faced peasant girl with beaming eyes. He dressed her in a sarafan—a floor-length traditional Russian peasant jumper dress held up by two straps—and gave her carefully styled slicked-down hair largely hidden under a colorful babushka or bandanna. He placed other figures, either male or female, each smaller then the one before, inside the largest doll, dressing them in kosovorotkas, or Russian blouses fastened on one side, shirts, poddyovkas, or men’s long-waisted coats, and aprons. He planned to have the smallest, innermost doll, traditionally a baby, turned from a single piece of wood. But it was Vasily Zvyozdochkin who made the first doll set in Moscow towards the end of 1890 and made the Matryoshka doll a reality.

Mamontov's wife presented the dolls at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, where they won a bronze medal. Soon after, craftsmen in several other Russian towns began making them and shipping them around the world.

So where did the name for these dolls come from? At the end of 19th century, Matrena was one of the popular female names in Russia. Derived from the Latin root matrena, it means, "mother," “respected lady," or "mother of the family." Placing one figure inside another was also a fitting symbol of fertility and perpetuation. People also refer to these dolls as "babushka dolls", "babushka" meaning "grandmother" or "elderly woman" and also the name of the bandana worn by peasant women at the time.

Matryoshka dolls aren’t easy to make. It requires a lot of skill. Many a craftsman has given up after trying to create one. In the beginning, those who did know how to fashion these dolls kept the process a secret. 

First it’s important to choose the proper type of wood. Because of its softness, lime wood is generally chosen, less often alder or birch. It’s important to cut the wood at the right time, when it’s neither too dry nor too dump. Only an expert can determine when it's just right. Each piece of wood goes through as many as 15 separate operations. The craftsman creates the smallest doll in the series—the one that cannot be taken apart—first.

Once the smallest doll has been made, the craftsman starts on the next figure into which that first doll will fit. He cuts a piece of wood to the necessary height and then cuts it in half to form a top and bottom section. He works on the bottom section of the doll first, removing the wood from the inside of both sections of the second doll so that the smaller doll will fit snugly inside. A skilled craftsman, by the way, doesn’t bother to make measurements but relies solely on experience. Afterwards, he repeats the process, making a slightly larger doll into which the previous two will fit.


When the craftsman finishes each doll, he covers it with starchy glue that fills in any hollow areas in its surface. Then he polishes the dolls to a smooth finish to enable the painter to spread the paint evenly. After fashioning and finishing the wooden dolls, the craftsman hands it on to a painter who then gives the dolls their inimitable style.

The number of dolls held one inside the other varies from 2 to 60. There’s no limit to the size of these dolls. Some made today are quite large and hold many others within.

Much of the artistry is in the painting of each doll, which can be very elaborate. The dolls often follow a theme which may vary, from fairy tale characters to Soviet leaders. Originally, doll makers used themes drawn from tradition or fairy tale characters, in keeping with the craft tradition, but since the 20th century, they have embraced a larger range, including flowers, churches, icons, folk tales, family themes, religious subjects, and even Soviet and American political leaders.

The craft of making Matryoshka dolls gradually spread from Moscow to other cities and towns, including Semenov, Polkhovskiy Maidan, Vyatka, and Tver'. Each locality developed its own style and form of decoration.

As with other crafts, the Russian Government under Communism strictly controlled doll making and selling. But political changes at the end of the 1980s gave artisans new possibilities and freedoms. They could now make their dolls without fear.

A painter named Sikorsky was one of the first whose dolls became popular with the public. His dolls bring the highest prices, with individual sets costing as much as $3,000. His access stimulated other artists, and since then, Matryoshka doll making has been on the rise. 

For more information on Matryroshka dolls, go to Nesting Dolls.

Better to See You With My Dear

QUESTION: While recently going through some boxes in my attic, I discovered a pair of old spectacles that seem to be in rather good condition. Are these collectible?

ANSWER: While most people might just give these away or sell them at a yard sale, you should definitely hang on to these, as they’re very collectible.

Lots of people wear eyeglasses. With the advent of contact lenses, some don’t even show it. But these devices, first invented to magnify text, have become as ubiquitous as cell phones in today’s society.

Church sales and thrift shops often get plastic bags filled with old eye glasses, as people either get new ones or contact lenses. Today, eye glasses are not only a seeing aid but also a fashion accessory. And, what about the spectacles you found in an old family trunk and sold at your last yard sale? Believe it or not, just like other out-of-fashion accessories, those glasses are collectible.

Spectacles have been around since the late Middle Ages when wealthy people in Italy and China wore them. Another early form of sunglasses were goggles, first created by the Eskimos to protect their eyes from snow glare.

The use of eyeglasses grew by the 18th century as their technology improved. They became fashionable when famous Americans began wearing them. Everybody is familiar with the paintings of Benjamin Franklin wearing the bifocals that he invented. Franklin created the first bifocals in the 1760's while living in London.

Thomas Jefferson created the first oblong lenses for his reading glasses to increase his field of vision. Before that glass lenses were round or oval. Later, President Theodore Roosevelt started a fashion trend when he first wore pince-nez glasses—those held on a person’s face by a spring on the nose.


While women didn't wear glasses in public in 18th century America, one woman advertised in 1753, that she “grinds all sorts of Optic Glasses to the greatest perfection." Known in her ad only as "the widow Balthasar Sommer on Pot Baker's Hill,'' she became the earliest recorded American eye glasses maker. But it wasn’t until after the American Revolution that people recorded eye glasses as made in America.

By the early 19th century, glasses adjusted over the ears to fit the entire family. A device called a “Temple" slid back and forth. As with earlier versions, their sole purpose was to magnify.

Eye glass makers used gold and silver for early frames, mostly because they were the most common workable metals available. So a pair of glasses wasn’t cheap. If you think you have old ones, check the hallmark to learn date, country and maker.

Don't pass up examples in brass or steel. They could be 18th or 19th century. In this plastic age, look for authentic tortoise shell frames. Don't limit yourself to 19th and early  20th-century glasses. Remember, they’ve always been made in the fashion of their day.

The 1970's were a great time for unique styles. An example would be the tinted sunglasses designed by artist Peter Max, along with his Pop Art design cases. And don’t forget the outsize sunglasses in the Jackie Kennedy Onassis style. Celebrity styles with funky frame, like the ones worn by Elton John and John Lennon’s small,   round, black-rimmed ones, also debuted in the 1970's. Never mind that the frames are plastic. Like other 1970's objects, they’re also collectible.

If you wish to collect eye wear and related objects, you can build a collection of not only pairs of eyeglasses showing a variety of frames and clear and tinted lenses, but also  opticians' trade signs, related documents, and paintings of people wearing glasses. In most cases, you’ll find many eye glasses for sale for a song at flea markets, church and garage sales.

Spin, Spin, Spin

QUESTION: Several years ago, I purchased a small spinning wheel at a local antique show. The dealer said it had been made small for use by a child. While that seems like a good way to teach a little girl how to spin, I’ve never seen one so small. It stands less than two feet tall. Also the wheel doesn’t look like the usual kind and sits in a vertical position under the spinning mechanism. What can you tell me about my spinning wheel? Was it for a child’s use or maybe made as a sales sample?

ANSWER: Your spinning wheel was neither made for a child’s use or as a sales sample. It’s called a parlor spinning wheel and is one of four types of wheels made in the 18th and early 19th centuries for use by women in the home.

Spinning has been a vital part of everyday life all over the world for thousands of years. The Western spinning wheel has been around since about the 14th century, thus there are as many style of wheels as there are people who make them. But there are only two basic ways to spin, and all styles of wheels are variations on one of the two.

The first way to spin is called "quill" or"spindle" spinning. The mechanism is a simple system of pulleys attached to the wheel. The pulleys cause a long, sharp, metal spike, or "quill," to turn. Fibers are spun off the tip of the quill and then manually wound back onto it.

The second, more modern, way to spin is with a "spinning assembly" which consists of a "flyer" and "bobbin." The flyer is a U-shaped piece of wood with hooks running along both sides and a hole, called the orifice, at the bottom. The spinning assembly allows the spun fiber to wind onto the bobbin automatically.

There are four styles of spinning wheels. The first is the wood wheel, which has no treadle or foot pedal to turn the wheel. The user must work with it while standing, walking backward to twist the fibers and then forward again to wind the spun yarn onto the quill or spindle. For this reason, people call the wool wheel the walking wheel or the high wheel or great wheel because it stands 4 to 6 feet tall.

The second style of spinning wheel is the flax wheel, also called the Saxony wheel. This type is what most people think of when they picture a spinning wheel. It has a low slanted bench, a treadle to keep the wheel going, and a spinning`assembly. A Saxony  wheel also has some sort of distaff to hold the flax while the user spins it. The distaff could be a straight stick in a hole at the front of the bench, or it could be on its own frame so, you can swing it to the side. Very often the distaff has been lost over time, and the only clue that there was a distaff at one time is a hole in the bench.

The third type of spinning wheel is the castle wheel, which has all the same components of the Saxony—a small wheel, treadle and spinning assembly—but instead of being mounted on a slanted bench, the wheel and assembly sit in a vertical frame. Technically, this type can only be a castle wheel if the spinning assembly is mounted below the wheel, but most people now call any upright or vertical frame style a castle wheel. True castle wheels are relatively rare.

The last type of spinning wheel is the parlor wheel, an upright or vertical version of the Saxony. Though it may look like a castle wheel, only two vertical upright posts support the wheel instead of a rectangular frame. These wheels are also the smallest.

Besides the story that these dainty wheels were originally made for use by children, some antique dealers spin a yarn which says that immigrants brought this type over to America with them because they could only bring small items on the ships. And while both of these explanations for the parlor wheel's size seem plausible, neither is true.

The parlor wheel’s small size appealed to the Eastern and Central Europeans. There have been wheels dated well before immigration began which were just as compact as those made during and after the rush to America.

Truly antique versions of the parlor spinning wheel sell for nearly $500. But there are a lot of reproductions out there, and it’s often difficult to distinguish the authentic from the reproduction.

Still Crazy After All These Years

QUESTION: I recently purchased a crazy quilt at a country antique show. I love the intricate designs, but, otherwise, don’t know much about it. Can you tell me more and perhaps tell me how I can take care of it? It’s in pretty good condition, but I can see that it’s somewhat delicate.

ANSWER: Your crazy quilt is the result a fad that began here in the United States over 100 years ago, roughly from 1875 to 1900. As with many country quilts, it became a way for women to use up their extra scraps of cloth or fabric from worn-out clothes, but crazy quilts also were a form of self expression, much like samplers were a 100 years before that.

Victorian women created crazy quilts like giant jigsaw puzzles, made of irregular pieces of silk, satin, velvet, or plush fabric sewn onto a solid backing of a lighter material, then decorated with embroidery stitches. Many became sentimental diaries stitched with names and legends while others took on the look of nostalgic stitched scrapbooks filled with memorabilia commemorating events, story book characters, garden flowers, even family pets. Women often made them as gifts to a bride or to someone recovering from a severe illness. Others made them in memory of a loved one who had recently passed.

Scraps for these elaborate quilts often came from ball gowns, opera capes, or the parlor curtains. But women could also buy packages of scraps from the Montgomery Ward or Sears Roebuck catalogs. The Singer Sewing Machine Company used crazy quilts as a symbol on their trade cards. Women's magazines of the day offered directions for making crazy quilts as table covers along with patterns for decorating them. Silk manufacturers promoted the use of their scrap waste in making crazy quilts. Magazine publishers also offered booklets on making crazy quilts as premiums in exchange for  subscriptions to their periodicals.

The word crazy in this case actually means irregular, odd, bizarre, strange, or unusual, and perfectly describes these quilts. Some look like a haphazard collection of odd bits of cloth and memorabilia while others are more like abstract works of silk art in shimmering colors reflecting light.

Since crazy quilts are more often tufted rather than quilted, they should be called "throws." Victorian housewives often threw them over parlor tables and pianos, as well as sofas or beds. They were the perfect complement to the ornately carved overstuffed furniture and bric-a-brac of every sort adorning  table tops, etageres, and mantels in the Victorian parlor.

Some historians believe the Victorian crazy quilt may have originated as a result of the popularity of Japanese prints or screens after the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876. Others wonder if their fractured designs may have been taken from the pattern of an uneven pavement or cracked ice, a popular decorative border used from the late 1870s through the 1880s.

Likewise, women often copied the patterns painted and embroidered on crazy quilts from Japanese ones. Many crazy quilts display a cranes standing in pools of water, owls and peacocks perched on gnarled tree branches, kimono clad figures, butterflies and cherry blossoms, hanging lanterns and spider webs.

And since not every woman was artistically talented, makers of crazy quilts could purchase pre-stamped patches or would trace designs from magazines. The Ladies Home Journal offered as a premium to readers bringing in 16 new subscribers a “Crazy Patchwork Outfit,” consisting of 12 pre-stamped pieces of silk, one box of stamping powder, twelve skeins of embroidery silk, and a glittering array of two dozen spangles and two yards of tinsel cord.

Women's magazines also offered how-to instructions for the three basic embroidery stitches---the outline, Kensington, and plush. The outline stitch, also known as the stem stitch, formed a thread line as in a drawing. The Kensington stitch enabled crazy quilt makers to fill in their outlines using various colors. And the plush stitch produced areas of cut silk thread like a pile carpet.

Quilt makers used embroidery stitches not only along the edges of patches to decorate them and at the same time hold the edges under and in place but also to make designs. Those who lacked embroidery skills could purchase pre-embroidered appliques. Some crazy quilt makers further embellished their creations with painted designs on the fabric after they assembled their quilts. Sequins, beads, spangles, metallic braid, and ribbon were also popular forms of embellishment.

Crazy quilts are as durable as regular quilts. They won’t survive daily folding and shouldn’t be used as throws where they’ll be handled a lot. But they can be mounted on a frame or encased in plexiglass and hung on a wall. Both dry cleaning and wet cleaning damages them, so the only safe way of cleaning them is to use a low power vacuum held well away from the fabric which has been covered with some sort of mesh screening—an old window screen will do—to prevent the fabric from being sucked up and damaged.

Unlike regular quilts, women who made crazy quilts usually signed them. Many have been passed down through generations in a family.

Prices for crazy quilts range from $50 for an average small one to as much as $1000 for a large exceptionally stitched one. Because their prices are relatively low in comparison with fine 19th-century quilts, many most likely remain hidden away in attic trunks waiting to be discovered.

Chew, Chew...Spit

QUESTION: I found what looks like a small, shallow, porcelain vase at a fleamarket near my home. It’s almost too short to hold anything but flowers with very short stems and has a delicate floral design on the outside. Do you have any idea what this might be?

ANSWER: What you have is a ladies spit cup or spittoon. Chewing is one of the oldest ways of consuming tobacco. Native Americans chewed its leaves, often mixing it with lime. It became a popular pastime in the last decade of the 18th century and continued to be so until 1920. Today, the most visible evidence of tobacco chewing appears in baseball, but even that’s dying out as users succumb to throat cancer.

Though mostly men indulged in the habit of chewing tobacco, women, especially those in Victorian times, used it as well. In 1865, a traveler down South noted that seven-tenths of all people, both male and female,  over the age of 12 used tobacco in some form. Even children of 8 or 9 smoked. The habit increased in popularity after the Civil War as soldiers, who chewed tobacco to ease frazzled nerves on the battlefield, continued to do so after they came home.

Victorian women could chew and spit as well as men. These ladies usually abused tobacco and alcohol behind closed doors. And while they snuck outside and drank and smoked in the outhouse to avoid being caught by their husbands, they often chewed tobacco quietly around the house while doing their chores and needed something in which to deposit their spit.

After the Civil War, spittoons became a fixture in many places, including hotels, saloons, stores, and any other place where men chewing tobacco might congregate. These were large vessels made of brass or pottery with a broad rim into which the chewer tried to aim his spit, often with little success.

Woman, on the other hand, used a dainty spit cup—also called a lady’s cuspidor, toilette cup, or boudoir dish—to gracefully discard their sputum. Some looked like regular coffee or tea cups while others had fanciful shapes with fluted rims. Since ladies didn’t need to spit across the room, these cups often had decorative gold rims and base, and delicate, lady-like designs. Some came in the shape of little baskets or drawstring purses. English and French manufacturers, especially Limoges, made these lovely spit receptacles out of fine porcelain, and for plainer, everyday use, ironstone with flowered transferware patterns on both the inside and outside.

As chewing tobacco's popularity declined throughout the years, the spittoon became a relic. However, women found other uses for these cups. Pregnant women, who tended to salivate more, especially when they had nausea or heartburn, also used these cups. Even today, it’s common for Haitian women to carry around a spit cup while pregnant.

The Truth About Sadirons

QUESTION: Recently, I purchased an old iron at a local flea market. On the top of the heavy iron base is molded the word “sadiron.” Was this the brand name or a name people called this type of iron?

ANSWER: A flatiron pointed at both ends and having a removable handle is commonly referred to as a sad iron. First used in 1738, it became a regular household item by the mid-18th century and continued in use until the last decade of the 19th.

From research, historians know that the Chinese started pressing cloth using hot metal before anyone else. At the same time, Viking women used simple round linen smoothers made of dark glass along with smoothing boards to iron cloth. Others used hand-size stones which they rubbed over woven cloth to smooth it, polish it, or press it into pleats. And while some may have dampened linen first, it’s unlikely that these women heated their “smoothers.” Later glass smoothers, called slickers, slickstones, or slickenstones, had handles. It wasn’t until the late Middle Ages that blacksmiths began forging smoothing irons, heated by a fire or on a stove, for home use.

People began to call these flat smoothing irons “sad” irons, based on the Old English word “sad” meaning heavy, dense, or solid. Although most of these irons were small, they were very heavy, thus women looked forward to ironing day with some distain, knowing the drudgery it entailed.

On Mondays, women washed both clothes and bedding. They reserved Tuesdays for ironing, a chore that took all day and tired them as much as washing.

At home, ironing traditional fabrics without the benefit of electricity was a hot, arduous job. Women had to keep their sadirons immaculately clean, sand-papered, and polished. They also had to keep them away from fireplaces to avoid getting soot on them and had to regularly grease them lightly to avoid having them rust. Beeswax, applied to the underside of an iron, prevented it from sticking to starched cloth.

Women needed to own at least two irons—one for ironing and one for re-heating—to make the sadiron system work well. Large Victorian households with servants often had a special ironing-stove on which to heat the irons, fitted with slots for several irons and a place to set a water jug on top.

With no way to control temperature, women had to constantly test to see if their iron was hot enough by spitting on its heated underside. They learned the right temperature by experience—hot enough to smooth the cloth but not so hot as to scorch it. So they wouldn’t burn their hands, they had to grip the handles of their irons with a thick rag.

On April 4,1871, an enterprising women named Mary Potts of Ottumwa, Iowa (Yes, that’s right, the place where the fictional character, Radar O-Rielly, hailed from on the hit T.V. series, “M.A.S.H.”), received a U.S. patent for a lighter sadiron with a detachable wooden handle, which remained cool while ironing. Women could purchase several iron bases which could all be heating on the stove while she ironed. Women loved the idea.

She received another patent for an iron with a hollow body which could be filled with a material that didn’t conduct heat, such as plaster of Paris, clay or cement. In her patent, Mrs. Potts claimed that these materials held the heat longer so that women could iron more garments without reheating their as often.

Mrs. Potts exhibited her new sadiron in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. She prominently featured her picture in advertising for her new iron.

The Art of Human Hair

QUESTION: My grandmother left me several items, one of which is a little round porcelain bowl that’s about four inches wide with a lid that has a 1½-inch hole in the top. Can you tell me what this might be?

ANSWER: The covered bowl you have is known as a hair receiver. Back in Victorian times, women used to save the hair from their brushes—most had long hair that needed to be brushed at least once a day to keep it clean—and also from trimmings.

Victorian women’s dressing tables often had a hair receiver as part of a dresser set consisting of receiver, powder jar, hatpin holder, brush, comb, nail buffer and tray. Many carried on the tradition into the early 20th century. They would comb the hair from their brushes and push it through the hole in the receiver. Later, they would stuff it into pillows or pincushions. Since women—and men--- didn’t wash their hair but once a week, they would apply oils to add scent and shine to their hair. This oil helped to lubricate straight pins and needles, making them easier to insert into fabric.

These women also used the hair they saved to make “ratts”—a small ball of hair that they inserted into a hairstyle to add volume and fullness. They made this by stuffing a sheer hairnet with the hair from the receiver until it was about the size of a potato, then sewing it shut. Women most likely used tangled hair from their hairbrushes to make these. A Victorian woman considered her hairstyle the epitome of style and took great pains to make it stand out.

But the most well-known uses for hair was to make remembrances of deceased loved ones. And though many people believe this practice originated in the mid 19th century, it actually began in the mid 17th. Even at that time, people wanted to have personal keepsakes of their loved ones, but since photography hadn’t been invented yet, they turned to jewelry made of human hair.

In the 1600s, people created medallions in the form of initials in gold laid on a background of woven hair set under crystal. Women wore these as memorial jewelry, usually in the form of brooches.

After this type of jewelry went out of style in the 18th century because women thought it grotesque, it once again appeared in the mid 19th century during the reign of Queen Victoria. Instead of the gold initials of the deceased, women used seed pearls and watercolors along with enamels to create a more elaborate picture under the glass. Often, they spread the hair out to look like a weeping willow tree.

To make keepsakes for a deceased loved one, women cut the hair from the deceased's head.
Prior to the 1850s, they stored the hair in cloth bags until they had enough to make a piece. Unlike the tangled hair used for making ratts, women preferred using cut hair to make their keepsake pieces. In the last half of the century, porcelain and ceramic manufacturers began to produce storage containers specifically designed to hold hair.

While most of the jewelry made of hair was for mourning purposes, some women made pieces to give to their living loved ones. Some made watch chains woven from their hair to give to their husbands and boyfriends to take into battle during the Civil War.

The popularity of hair jewelry peaked in the 1850s but after the Civil War another trend took hold. Instead of creating keepsake jewelry, women began producing works of art from human hair. They employed different colors of hair to create pictures and mosaics under glass domes or frames. Sometimes these mimicked famous paintings. At other times, they created stilllifes of flowers. They also gave the popular family tree new meaning by making one using the hair from each family member, plus pictures of the family, ribbons, dried flowers, butterflies, and even little stuffed birds.

Primarily made in porcelain and ceramic, manufacturers also made hair receivers of glass, silver, silver plate, wood and celluloid. The glass types often had brass or silver tops. While the round ones seemed to be the most popular, there were oval ones as well. And though some rested on little legs or pedestals, most had flat bottoms. Skilled workers painted many of the porcelain ones with floral or Oriental designs on both the receiver and top. Others had simple gilt borders around the edge of the top. Companies such as Limoges, Noritake, O.& Prussia, R.S. Prussia and Wistoria all made hair receivers.