Can anyone help with my pottery/porcelain miniture dolls?

Can anyone help me with these dolls I picked up? They are made of pottery or porcelain and oly about 4 " long with jointed parts. I have not been able to find anything out about them??? Thanks for any help.

First of all I am no expert on dolls so I stand to be corrected but this is my opinion for what it is worth.

"Made in Japan" was one of the four marks that imported products to the States were made to have from 1947 when exporting restarted after the Second World War. There was also just "Japan" and two other marks with "Occupied" in the wording (these being more collectable). My feeling is that these are from that period as this sort of thing was popular here in the 1950s as well.

Being made of ceramic material does suggest an earlier date but pre-War I would have thought that there would have been a factory mark and not this wording (I do not know for sure though). Post War, I would have imagined these would have been more likely to have been made of plastic but I suppose it would have taken time for industry to start up and develop new materials in Japan post 1945.

This is interesting

Apart from the origin and markings, why do they look similar to the 'Black and White Minstrel / slave / mammy' type image?

Was that a trendy 'look' of the time? Anyone?

xx

although it's a VERY un-PC word to use, and I apologise in advance, but these dolls are commonly referred to as Picaninny Dolls, dating from the the 30s onwards i think.

ooops, apologies, just realised i posted a link to a site that was selling things. sorry.

bistoboy wrote:ooops, apologies, just realised i posted a link to a site that was selling things. sorry.

No problem Bisty, I edited it - but yes that's what I was thinking. What would a picaninny image have to do with Japan?

I think it was a 50's popular image

xx

Thank you all for your help.......