Ruth Treffeisen’s cast of ‘Wonderland’ figures capture the detail and character of a literary classic.

By Jill Jackson

“It all started with a little porcelain doll named Alice,” explains doll artist Ruth Treffeisen. “Her fresh little face looked thoughtful while at the same time self-confident, curious, and a bit, well, critical. In my view, she reflected perfectly the young girl in Lewis Carroll’s fantastic stories.” 

The “Alice” Ruth was referring to is the well-known title character of Lewis Carroll’s enduring 19^th-century literary classic for children and the first “Wonderland” piece Ruth sculpted in 2002. Since then, the ongoing project of re-creating the characters found in the pages of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” has proven to be a real adventure for Ruth as well.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, under the alias Lewis Carroll, authored the “Alice” books in 1865 and 1872, respectively. Though Carroll was a prolific writer and photographer, his books portraying the imaginary and often nonsensical adventures of a young girl in England in the Victorian era are his best known.

 “The wondrous personalities, caricatures, and mythical creatures in these books induced me to try to portray these figures in porcelain and to re-create that fantasy world for my little Alice,” says Ruth. Dressed elegantly in a pale blue silk dress and white lace pinafore, Alice was already dressed for a party. Ruth decided to stage the infamous tea party.

The first “Wonderland” character created to accompany Alice was the Mad Hatter. “This English dandy from the middle of the 19^th century must look truly mad, but also classic and very elegant,” says Ruth. “He may have been mad, but he was also a gentleman.” 

Unable to find material she felt embodied the right blend of lunacy and gentility needed for his offbeat personality, Ruth and her staff finally created their own material using a patchwork technique. Pure silk in a variety of colors literally pieced together the Hatter’s breeches and waistcoat. The riotous pattern paired with the elegant silk proved the perfect answer to the question: What do Mad Hatters wear? His arms and legs were made of porcelain with an armature, and a “well-suited body concept” allowed him to be posed in various positions.

“After making this character,” Ruth says, “I completed the scene with the March Hare to arrange the tea party. I had never modeled animals before and found it very exciting. For these figures we couldn’t find suitable materials, either. Therefore, we hand-painted the silk ourselves.”

Due to the size and intricacy of her “Wonderland” pieces, Ruth creates only one or two new pieces each year. The most difficult challenge has been Humpty Dumpty, “whose egg-shaped mold,” recalls Ruth, “turned out to be very difficult to bake. Many models were necessary to achieve a satisfactory result.” After numerous unhappy attempts and many re-sculpts, Ruth finally turned out a Humpty Dumpty she deemed worthy of inclusion in her cast of “Wonderland” characters. 

When compared to the original illustrations by Sir John Tenniel, Ruth’s works are astonishingly accurate. Though Tenniel’s illustrations were black and white sketches, Ruth’s three-dimensional whimsies are full of rich colors and an almost limitless array of textures. No one could compare the original illustrations with their present-day counterparts and not realize how perfect the likeness is. From the facial structure and physical form to the exacting detail of the costumes, they are as similar as this art form will allow.

While Ruth may have chosen to take some artistic license in her portrayal of Alice, the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, Humpty Dumpty, and the Queen of Hearts are awe-inspiring in their exactness. Ruth’s Queen, with her thick body and regal stance, is captured with mouth wide open in mid-shout: “Off with their heads!” The Mad Hatter can easily be imagined reciting with characteristic haughty distain: “Twinkle, twinkle little bat. How I wonder where you’re at.” 

Ruth’s next foray into “Wonderland” will be to extract the ever-late, always worried White Rabbit. “I believe I will still be occupied with Alice’s story for quite some time and that other figures will follow the rabbit,” she says.

With each new creative adventure, Ruth brings a little more of Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical notions and riotous rhymes to the world of doll collecting. And, in the words of Alice, “things keep getting curiouser and curiouser,” in a fun sort of way.