Antique Paper Doll - Adelina Patti

My quest for Antique L&B Ballerina and Prima Donna Paper Dolls continues and I hope to one day have a full collection of these amazing little works of art.

I've been fortunate enough to have purchased some of these 100+ year old beauties over the past few years and in some situations the dolls I've purchased have had mismatched parts.  My great fortune has been that by evaluating the odds and ends I've been able to reconstruct several complete dolls as they were originally designed and sold in the late 1800's.

One of the great thing about these dolls is that they still look wonderful with parts that were not original for that specific doll head; but I'm thrilled to present the doll as she was originally intended.

Adelina Patti

She was a highly acclaimed opera dive in the late 19th century.

Adelina Patti - Green L&B Ballerina Paper Doll

From my research, I've found that the Adelina Patti head was to have been

paired with Green ballerina slippers and  arms with gold bracelets.  

Luckily I had all the parts in my current collection to complete 

this doll as she was originally intended.  

Naturally other L&B doll parts of the same size could be paired up 

with this head; like pink ballerina slippers or pink Prima Donna body parts.  

I originally purchased her with yellow Prima Donna parts but now 

I have her the way she was intended as a green ballerina.

Vintage photos of Adelina Patti

Adelina Patti - As I was able to purchase her

I purchased this Adelina Patti doll as seen above with these yellow
"Prima Donna" doll parts and though they will work well as an alternate dressing style
for this doll, the green ballerina parts do suite her best.

Alternate doll parts by L&B for their paper doll line

 This lovely set of black doll limbs were also available when these dolls were
originally made.  I love the fact that the legs are in the ballerina style yet the arms
are from their prima donna line.  A great mix of both dolls in elegant black.


I now have 2 out of 3 ballerinas from L&B set #2844
The first one is Lillian Russell - I posted about her yesterday.
The Middle one is Adelina Patti

I still hope to add the blue ballerina to my collection.

This is what the complete Blue Ballerina would look like

Till Next time...