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We know much more about toys in the 1860s than ever before, largely due to the appearance of the CDV proving a huge increase in the number of images. And for the first time for some reason we see really large number of props, including toys. Here we have a commercially made CDV. It is not dated, but we would guess was taken in the 1860s. Toys were often used as props in children's portraits. But here there are toys all over the place giving us a good idea about toys in the 1860s. The bottom of the matt is penciled 'Sick Doll' and has the title with the printed wording 'The Sick Doll' and 'Registered'. Since the matt is marked 'Registered' we might attribute the CDV to England as this is an English marking which is equivalent to an American patent marking. Shown in the photo are dolls (probably German manufacture) being held by children. Looks like one of the boys has a spoon preparing to feed the doll laying on the lap of the girl on the right. Apparently that doll is intended to be the 'sick' one. There is an accordion on one table. There is a painted wood German ark at the bottom left corner. There is a German drum located at the bottom left. There is a German painted tin train engine with tender located to the right of the drum. Also, there is a German wood stable with two horses at the bottom right of photo. One horse is in the stable and the other horse is standing at the bottom center of the photo. Also included is a dancing man toy (probably clockwork) apparently on top of a six sided wood base. Normally we would attribute toys of this general type to American manufacturers such as Ives or American Toy Works. However, this one has a larger dancing figure than we have seen on any of the versions made by any of the American makers. So, perhaps this toy, like the others in the photo, is also German. This toy is located just under the boy's legs on the right but the toy is quite difficult to see. Not pictured here is a hobby horse which was a very popular toy. Its prevalence os probanly overstated because many studios had them for photographing children. We see large nunbers of hobby horse images in the 1860s. There were not many such images in the 1850s, but we certainly see them in the 1860s. They were probably less common in actual homes, although we suspect most midde-class children had them.
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