The earliest European porcelain dolls were
china dolls, made predominantly in Germany between 1840 and 1880.
Parian dolls were made in Germany of white unglazed porcelain from the 1850s onwards. Between approximately 1860 and 1890 most bisque dolls were
fashion dolls, made to represent grown-up women. They were intended for children of affluent families to play with and dress in contemporary fashions. A few German manufacturers like Kestner also made more detailed dolls entirely of bisque with articulated necks, arms, or legs. Bisque was the most common material for European doll heads until after the turn of the 20th century when composition (or composite) took over. In the early 20th century the bisque doll production began moving to the
United States. American
Kewpie dolls from the early 20th century were made of bisque, before
celluloid became more common. Bisque dolls were made as commercial products in Germany for the toy rather than collector market until the late 1930s. Japan also produced many small bisque dolls in the 1920s and 1930s, often cold painted with oil colours, which have subsequently washed off. At about the same time, just before the Second World War, hobbyist production of reproduction dolls, firstly elaborately moulded female doll heads from the 1860s and 1870s, began in the US with doll artists such as Emma Clear. Reproduction bisque doll making grew slowly as a hobby in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, expanding greatly during the 1970s and by about spreading to Europe, Great Britain, and Australia, via companies retailing moulds and supplies such as Seeley's and Wandke, which ran large scale networks of classes and seminars. Another branch of bisque doll-making that emerged during the 1940s in the US was "artists dolls", initially creatively designed and moulded dolls that were not copies of 19th century or early 20th century dolls or cast from earlier dolls. These dolls were intended for the adult collector market. In the 1980s, bisque dolls had a revival with the growth of the collectors market, and towards the end of the 20th century, production began to move to China. China produced many inexpensive porcelain dolls sold in discount departments and chain stores, often decorator pieces. This production was at an industrial rather than hobby/studio scale. Mass-produced porcelain dolls can still be found worldwide in bargain stores retailing goods from China. More expensive, industrially produced bisque dolls may be found by mail order, gift shops, or even exclusive, upmarket toy shops as decorations for girls' rooms. Reproduction and artist made bisque dolls still appear, but the scale of the hobby is not as significant as in the 1980s. ==Collecting==