Pierre-François Jumeau

Pierre-François Jumeau (31 October 1811 Rémalard) – 13 August 1895 , Paris), was the founder in the 1840s of the French firm Jumeau, that produced bisque dolls and china dolls. His second son Emile-Louis Jumeau, born in 1843, began assuming management of the company in the 1870s.

Pierre-François's family owned a fabric shop in Rémalard, south-west of Paris, in 1837. On a business trip to Paris he met and eventually married in January 1841 the niece of one of the few dollmakers in France, Lucius-Junius Herissey. Jumeau gained invaluable experience by joining the Herissey business, which had good prospects due to the improved French economy and the growth of international markets.

In 1841 Jumeau was in partnership with Louis-Desire Belton, but started his own business a few years later after the death of his wife in 1844. By 1848 Jumeau had become the foremost doll manufacturer, had won a bronze medal at the 1849 Paris Exposition and was invited in 1851 to take part in the Crystal Palace Exhibition in London where he won a First Place Medal, the dresses being singled out for praise. The Jumeau dolls were widely acclaimed, winning numerous awards at international exhibitions. The first dolls were papier-mâché and were unmarked, causing present-day attribution problems, so that only a small number of Jumeau dolls made before the 1870s can be identified with certainty. In the 1850s glazed porcelain dolls had been added to the firm's inventory, but the bisque dolls were its greatest success, and the company acquired a reputation for the beauty, grace, elegance and quality of its products.

In 1872, Pierre-François, unhappy with the dolls' heads from Germany, started a porcelain factory at Montreuil to produce his own heads and began supplying other dollmakers.

From his marriage to Adèle Amélie Aumoitte, Pierre-François produced two children, Georges Eugène (1841–1873) and Emile (born 18 April 1843). Adèle died on 16 May 1843 following Emile's birth. In 1854, Pierre-François married Adélaïde Elisa Mayo who died in 1888.

Jumeau's second son Emile-Louis, born in 1843, who built the Château Jumeau or Villa Jumeau in Longny-au-Perche in 1866, began assuming management of the company and in 1877 he introduced the Bébé Incassable, with a head made by Jumeau, the face of a young girl and a fully articulated composition body. Jumeau's dolls were fashionably dressed in the styles popular at the time, and often had shapely mature figures. As with modern Barbie dolls, large ranges of clothing styles and accessories were made available. In 1878 the company was awarded a gold medal at the Paris Exhibition, an honour which was proudly advertised on all their products. Further awards followed at the International Exhibitions in Sydney in 1879 and Melbourne in 1880. In 1885, at the Antwerp Exhibition, Jumeau's dolls won the Diplôme d’Honneur, an award subsequently commemorated by being stamped on every doll made. The golden age of the company spanned the period from the late 1870s to the late 1890s when the company employed over 200 workers with an annual output of 100 000 dolls.

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