1800's Neapolitan Italian Creche Religious Doll with Glass Eyes, Antique Peasant Woman in Original outlet Clothes for Christmas Nativity or Putz

Outstanding 19th C. Neapolitan Creche Doll, peasant female figure in period dress with glass eyes. Head and hand are made of terracotta, wearing hand made clothes. Both hands have damage and broken fingers, and both feet are missing, wires exposed. Legs are wrapped.

Fair vintage condition, with overall wear, including scuffs, stains and loss of paint. Clothes are worn, torn and thread bare.

Approximately 7 inches in height. Does not stand alone.

This was purchased in an antique flea market in Valbonne, France where I was told that it came from an estate in Nuremberg, Germany, and was originally from Naples, Italy.

The 19th century Neapolitan Creche' doll from Naples, Italy is a unique art form and rich in cultural tradition, Created in the seventh and eighteenth centuries to visualize the birth outlet of the Christ child in a nativity scene , the Presepio was made up of true and realistic characters from every aspect of daily human life in 18th and 19th century Naples. These early Presepios included peasants, aristocratic figures, as well as disfigured ones, nobility dressed in silken finery while peasants dressed in cotton and wool. The wealthy of the era had rivalries on who could attain the largest and most extensive display. The Neapolitan Creche' Doll figures were initially collected to display the nativity scene of the Christ child, Joseph, Mary, wise men, shepherds. After the initial display was complete, not be be outdone, additional citizens were created depicting every aspect of life of the era. A demand grew to out do each others' display creating more and more figures for the collections.