This is a European porcelain doll of a boy wearing a hat and balancing a fruit in his hand. The doll could be made of bisque porcelain, which is unglazed porcelain with a matte finish. This gives the piece a realistic skin like texture. Such pieces are usually also tinted and further painted a realistic skin colour. These dolls could be of French or German origin and were popular in the late 19th to early 20th centuries. This piece could have been purchased as a collector’s piece and is evidence of the European colonial influence on the material culture of the Peranakans in the early 20th century.
