A Victorian Child's Dolls Pram

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Origin: English
Period: Victorian
Provenance: Unknown
Date: c.1880
Length: 45 inches
Maximum Height: 37 inches
Maximum Width: 13 inches
Interior Seat Width: 9.5 inches, & Length: 7.5 inches
Wheel Diameter: 14 inches (large wheel), 7 inches (small wheel)

With a retractable leatherette hood, hinged green painted wooden body and handles, and a beautifully swooping iron sprung frame and double spoked rolling wheels. This example is in good, original condition, with the painting largely intact, with only a few small areas of loss commensurate with age, and a few areas of oxidization on the iron frame.An uncanny and ghostly Victorian child's toy; wonderfully eerie, the presence of an object such as this serves to highlight what is absent, namely an innocent little girl quietly whispering a lullaby while reaching down for her beloved doll.

It is unknown when the first doll's pram was made, though some suggest that it was a worker at Frampton's Pram Factory who first made one for his daughter sometime between 1853 and 1880.  In the nineteenth century prams were expensive objects and symbols of status, but with the proliferation of the Victorian middle classes and the endorsement of fresh air and regular perambulation by doctors and by Queen Victoria, they became very popular, so much so that by the 1880s there were over 250 pram companies in England.

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