Painted Cloth Dolls Exhibited At Museum Open House

By Andrew Gorosko

While modern playthings may be sleek, glowing, and cybernetic, visitors to Newtown Historical Society’s Matthew Curtiss House Museum on Sunday, September 24,  got a sense of the toys that were common in households 150 years ago, when homespun cloth painted dolls were the objects of little girls’ attention.

Virginia O’Brien of Hampton exhibited and discussed her early American cloth painted dolls, which she assembles in her home studio.

Besides cloth dolls, Ms Hampton offers instruction in various early American decorative arts and folk arts.

Ms Hampton provided visitors to the museum with detailed displays explaining the fabrication of cloth painted dolls. She demonstrated how such dolls are made, providing technical information on their construction.

Ms Hampton has exhibited her dolls at Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts.