A CARVED AND POLYCHROME PAINT-DECORATED CIGAR STORE FIGURE OF A 'GIRL OF THE PERIOD'

With curled hair, rosy cheeks and a fancy hat and dress, this figure of a woman is portraying the popular stereotype “Girl of the Period.” With modernization, women were moving away from domestic life and into society, and the “Girl of the Period" satirizes the fashionable women of the time who were often viewed as vain. The lady in the present lot is depicted with an exaggerated waist and bustle which is likely modeled after the satirical print The Grecian Bend. This figure could possibly have been used by a milliner or a dressmaker for advertisement. For further information and related examples see Ralph Sessions, The Shipcarvers’ Art: Figureheads and Cigar-Store Indians in Nineteenth-Century America (Princeton, 2005), pp. 162-167.