Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Temple of Fancy Paper Dolls--Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper

 

A Cinderella paper doll is shown in two outfits, churning butter in the first and marrying the prince in the second.

Here's another old Temple of Fancy paper doll. Cinderella, or The Little Glass Slipper was published in 1814. You can read this version of Cinderella's story on the Internet Archive here, assuming the Internet Archive isn't down again due to hackers. It's a familiar story to most of us. For some reason this is the only one of these dolls whose story is based on a classic fairy tale. This doll was also shared online by the Bryn Mawr College, but I have added a few things. 

A Cinderella paper doll is shown riding in her carriage.

Cinderella wouldn't be Cinderella without her magic coach, would she? This is a large piece that originally folded in half to fit into the envelope with everything else. I had to fold my copy in half, too, or it would not fit in the pencil case I wanted to store it in. But the fold also makes it stand up on its own, so that's cool.

A Cinderella paper doll is shown in two outfits with hats. In the first she is churning butter, wearing an old-fashioned, Mother Goose-like bonnet. In the second she is running away from the ball with only one slipper, wearing a plain hat with a flat brim.

The Bryn Mawr College copy of the doll had two outfits without hats. I found a black and white picture of one of them elsewhere with a flat hat that did seem to fit the casual look of Cinderella running away from the ball, so I copied its shape and used colors and textures from her dress to make it match. So the hat on the right in the photo above is supposed to belong to her but could be missing details or have the wrong colors. The hat on the left was spotted with a copy of the Ellen doll, but it is not one of Ellen's hats. It fits Cinderella and goes with her last hatless outfit, so I think it's quite likely to be hers. It's styled like some Mother Goose bonnets, which I think fits with the idea that Cinderella would be working for her stepsisters--you can see them in the background--while wearing unfashionable old clothes. It's kind of pixilated, but I've tried to smooth it out a little. If you want to be completely sure you only use correct pieces, you can discard those two hats, but they are a much safer bet than Frederick's replacement hats.

A prince paper doll is shown in both his original outfit, with an additional feathery hat, and a recolored outfit with a matching crown.

Now, here's where I've gotten, ahem, creative with this set. Cinderella's final outfit is a wedding dress, and it comes complete with both the prince and the priest standing next to her. But I thought that was shockingly unfair, that the other characters were only part of her clothing! So I extracted them and tried to make them into proper dolls of their own. The prince's other outfits are recolors of his original one, so his pose unfortunately doesn't change. I did make him a bit bigger, just because his head was originally so small, so as a side effect he's taller than Cinderella now. Two of his feathery hats were blown up larger from the backgrounds of Cinderella's other outfits, and a third is a recolor of one of those. The crown was borrowed from a doll called Frank Feignwell and recolored, as I thought the prince really ought to have a crown. His page also includes Cinderella's wedding dress separated from the other characters.

A priest paper doll is shown in outfits, his original black and white robe and a green recolor.

The priest doesn't have any hats, but I recolored his robes in a few basic liturgical colors. I'm not an expert on those, but I figured green, red, and purple would offer reasonable choices for anyone who might want him for a paper doll church service. Anyway, since I was making the prince into a proper doll I decided that I might as well do it for the priest, too. If you want only the original pieces for Cinderella, print pages 1 and 2 and ignore pages 3 and 4. 

Paper dolls of Cinderella and the prince are shown together, both wearing hats with lots of feathers.

If you do use my extra dolls, the prince can interact with Cinderella while she is wearing her other outfits. It's fun to have options.

A Cinderella paper doll is shown marrying the prince, with a group of other paper dolls standing around.

Here's my current collection of these paper dolls, all dressed up for Cinderella's wedding. Find my previous posts about Little Fanny and Little Henry here, Ellen here, and Frederick here.

Download the Cinderella paper doll in PDF format here (page 1) and here (page 2), and get the prince here (page 3) and the priest here (page 4).

Cinderella paper doll page 1

Cinderella paper doll page 2

Cinderella paper doll page 3 -- the prince

Cinderella paper doll page 4 -- the priest

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