Dolls in the Spanish Golden Age: Playfully encouraging maternity

I Procreation

During the Golden Age, the function of children’s dolls transcended beyond being simple objects of play.  They enabled children to roleplay motherhood during their play.  Dolls provided a didactic way for children to become familiar with the care mothers bestowed upon their children.  As such, children become prepared for birth in adulthood. This fact is perceptible in the paintings of Early Modern Europe which illustrate girls carrying dolls in diapers or swaddling, pretending that they are newborns.  It is highly likely that the infants Isabel and Catalina of Austria also had dolls and partook in simulating motherhood through their play with them.

Similarly, the accounting documents of the House of Austria preserved in the Archives of the Palace and Simancas reveal that during their childhood, the daughters of Philip II gathered a remarkable collection of dolls from different origins. Some of them were made with fabric by the Queen´s tailors, Duarte de la Cate (active in 1560-1568) and René Geneli (active in 1565-1596).  Others were bought from the merchant Baltasar Gómez (active in 1560 – 1585), and others were sent to them from the French Court by their maternal grandmother, Catherine of Medici.

Logically, these figurines were one of the main sources of entertainment for the girls. This is confirmed by the mystical poet Luisa de Carvajal y Mendoza (who was raised in the monastery of the Descalzas Reales under the protection of her aunt María Chacón, governess of the infants), when she explained in her biographical notes that she spent most of the time playing dolls with them. Likewise, Anne of Diestrichstein, lady-in-waiting to Anne of Austria, declared in a letter sent in 1576 to her mother, Margaret of Cardona, that she frequently roleplayed being in the kitchen or caring for babies with the king´s daughters. [José Antonio Fernández Fernández]