The History of Toy Soldiers

By Luigi Toiati and James Opie

“Amazing . . . A must-have must-read bible for lovers of toy history and in particular toy soldiers. Absolutely glorious!” —Books Monthly
 
Humans have made and collected toy soldiers from time immemorial. They amuse and comfort us, awaken our curiosity, turn aggressiveness into creativity. In The History of Toy Soldiers, Luigi Toiati, himself an avid collector and manufacturer of toy soldiers, conveys and shares the pleasure of collecting and playing with them. Far from a dry encyclopedia, it leads the reader through the fascinating evolution of the toy soldier from ancient times to the early twenty-first century. The author, as a sociologist with an interest in semiotics (the study of signs), offers truly original insights into why different types of toy soldiers were born in a given period and country, or why in a given size and material. The author’s writing is packed with factual detail about the different types of toy (and model) soldiers and their manufacturers, but also with anecdotes, nostalgia, wit and his enduring passion for the subject. Six hundred beautiful color photographs, many depicting the author’s own collection, complete this delightful book.
 
“Toiati creatively delivers exhaustive details, captivating anecdotes and a sense of nostalgia that exudes the fundamental childhood joy of playing with toy soldiers combined with adult collectors’ wonderment at their charms.” —Toy Soldier & Model Figure
 
“A book that will enter the annals of Toy Soldier collections as one of the best and most complete books on this topic.” —IPMS/USA 
 
“A great journey of exploration.” —Miniature Wargaming

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781473897311

Luigi Toiati

Luigi Toiati cannot remember a time before he collected toy soldiers. He has a massive collection but doesn't keep count. He was a professional figure painter for 45 years, starting his career in London, working for his close friend Edward Suren, creator of the famous Willie brand of soldiers. In 1987 he began making his own soldiers, founding Garibaldi & Co. Toy Soldiers. A familiar figure on the toy soldier show circuit, he and his collection have been mentioned in various books on the subject, and he has himself written numerous articles on related matters. He has a degree in Sociology and a deep interest in Semiotics (the study of signs). He now lives in his native Rome with Monica, his wife and co-founder of their marketing research agency, Focus srl www.focusresearch.it).

Book preview

past.

Toy and Model Soldiers History and Gossip

CHAPTER 1

Some reasons why you too can love toy and model soldiers and figures

‘The charm of the old toy soldier lies in its simplicity of shape, which verges on that of a caricature. With his doll-like rosy cheeks and small black-dot eyes – unblinking, wide-awake – he seems to be awaiting your command in a fantasy world where his only claim to individuality is the slight variation of his bright, glossy uniform supplied by the painter’s hand.

A new box of toy soldiers must have enthralled many a youngster, mesmerized by these tiny men in perfect order. Once he took them from their box, a young boy could review the little army from above, or, by lying at floor level, could march with them into battle. It is such childhood memories that are the start of many toy soldier collections.’ (Roy Selwyn-Smith, foreword to The Art of the Toy Soldier, Kurtz & Ehrlich)

We have just explained the difference between toy and model soldiers, regardless of their materials, sizes, etc. We also said that the name does not necessarily correspond to the function, so that you can breezily collect toy soldiers or play with the model ones. I even dare say that everything becomes a pleasure with toy or model soldiers, even the most rigorous historical reconstruction or the most elitist collection in the world. The toy soldier is the realm of freedom: only, please, if you decide to fight with cowboys against the Sheriff of Nottingham, do not invite me!

What do we feel in front of a toy soldier, or a bunch of them? Joy. The soul becomes bubbly, we are under the impression of having bubbles inside, and a big smile seems to grow within us. Our eyes are gratified at the sight, now of the figures’ details or colours, now of the way we have arranged them on the table or on the showcases.

Picture 1.1: My best friend Gianni (left) and myself with our magic box. (ca. 1957)

The toy soldier has this gift of being like a fountain of eternal youth. When Proust tasted a Madeleine biscuit, he could smell again his childhood home, he saw again his aunt’s living room and he seemed to touch objects dear to him. Similarly, toy soldiers – without our realizing it – send us back to the smells of laundry and macaroni sauce, to the flavour of warm bread, to the sound of a radio playing or of a courtyard full of children, to the touch of the hands of people dear to us but now no longer around. In other places, memory will translate the same feelings into the smell of eggs and bacon or of sausage with sauerkraut, and the radios will speak French or Finnish, or the snow will cover some courtyards, while others will be by the sea. The call nevertheless will be forever and for everybody the same: our childhood.

Being children again

Mostly, toy soldiers take us back to childhood, and I am sure that this also happens to the more serious collector and historian, or the most experienced trader. So, when and if we ask, ‘why play with toy soldiers, why collect them?’, the first answer will be, ‘to find a little piece of the paradise of childhood’. We play or collect to relive our emotions, which is why in general as adults we begin to collect the toy soldiers we played with as kids. Those who today are around 60 almost certainly collect toy soldiers in metal or composition, those younger than 60 in plastic. Toy soldiers bring out feelings and sensory experiences from the trunk of forgotten memories, and remind us of moments, feelings, sounds and smells which we thought were dormant.

Anaesthetizing memory, reviving recollections

Toy soldiers have the merit, so to speak, of ‘purging’ the memory of bad times. Thomas Brussig, a German author, described it well: ‘Blessed is he who has good recollections and a bad memory.’ Here lies, in my opinion, the quality of toy soldiers, of anaesthetizing the memory and reviving the recollections. They will not bring back memory of the family arguments, the cold, the hardship, the daily boredom of school. Nor the crowded buses, the cockroaches and the morning Mass on Sundays, with our hair freshly trimmed high on the nape. They will instead bring back the recollection of the small room where, listening to the radio, we spent so many afternoons with twenty soldiers – mine in papiermâché, yours perhaps in tin, or hollow-cast, or clay – and we relived the cowboy films seen at the parish cinema, Protestant or Catholic, whichever you prefer.

At the same time they also anaesthetize the memory of the horrors of war, and keep alive values such as courage, adventure, heroism and – why not? – homeland. Perhaps we no longer believe in these values, but they continue – whether we are aware or not – to stay with us, as long as a figurine a few centimetres tall brings them back to light.

The child’s hand

Again, we collect toy soldiers or play with them because they bring us back to when we started playing with them, or to our first or most loved ones. When I have one of my little friends in my hands, I see myself running excitedly to the small shop in the square with my pockets full of the right change, hoarded to buy a little soldier of papier-mâché, or of lead or plastic. We collect and we play because nearly always a toy soldier in our hands makes us become that child again, who perhaps is less able to play and has less imagination than then, but is still in touch with his inner world. Therefore it is worth collecting and playing with toy soldiers because it produces pleasant emotions. We need these. Rely on the hand of the child you were, and let yourself be guided towards the simplest pleasure, beyond the market value of figures or the correctness of uniforms.

The pleasure of sight

Still, we play or we collect because toy soldiers are above all a feast for the eyes and satisfy our sense of aesthetics. Many are ugly, you may say, coarse, inaccurate, as for someone some post-war ‘B’ figures are, or for others the American dimestore items. Yet who said that beauty is universal? They are beautiful just because we played with them, or precisely since they are beautiful to us, they satisfy our aesthetics.

Again, we collect or we play because we like to have the figures before our eyes that we gathered, sometimes painted, over the years.

It is clear that collecting and playing do not always go hand-in-hand. Both of them imply the pleasure of sight, but with some differences.

We play for the pleasure of ‘staging’ something, real or imaginary. We do it alone or by taking part in wargames (which, I confess, an asocial person like me has always abhorred). Speaking in general, our eyes then go to the painting, the poses of the figures and the effect of the deployed troops.

We collect, on the other hand – regardless of whether model or toy soldiers – for different reasons. The pleasure of sight here focuses primarily on the workmanship of a single figure, which in turn is determined by our aesthetic taste.

Let me give you an example: we can enjoy the sight of a good model, painted to the highest degree of excellence, but also of an old flaking toy soldier which we bought at a stall or an auction, according to either its material or its symbolic value, e.g. ‘it’s rare’, or ‘Dad gave me it in 1961; I lost it, and I finally found it again.’

The challenge of finding

We therefore collect toy soldiers – and play with them, if we like – even for the challenge of finding figures we were looking for for years; it is ‘just what I was missing’ in order to complete something we already have.

I wish to say now just one thing that might make me enemies: for me – there are many of us who think so, actually – whoever collects just for money is not a true collector. The monetary value certainly has its importance, but it is secondary to the collector. Firstly, because he or she has not bought for money, but for love; secondly, because perhaps they will never resell that toy soldier, so particularly dear to them; thirdly, because the aware collector knows that what today is worth £100 and yesterday was worth £50, tomorrow can be worth just £5 or as much as £500. The true collector discourses on the economic value, but does not care about it. So much the better for his or her heirs if the price rises, but not for him or her. It is certainly important that your collection should be valuable. However – although this is just my personal opinion – sometimes, not always, those who collect just to create capital are not able to distinguish a toy soldier from an electric train, and they think that Julius Caesar died at Little Big Horn, where, as everyone knows, the charge of the 600 took place!

Consequently, ‘à l’amour comme à l’amour, au p’tit soldat comme au p’tit soldat.’

Go hunting

Yet, again, why collect? Well, to go ‘hunting’ for toy soldiers, which is slightly different from ‘finding’ them.

‘Finding’ implies trying to fulfil one’s aim: a systematic search for a definite and known object, and finally being able to have it, at any cost.

‘Hunting’ means instead relying on fate, whatever you discover. It is a wonderful feeling. As travelling is often far better than arriving, hunting is more attractive than finding – which nevertheless has an important role. No safari or shooting thrushes, the goal is to stroll and flush out both long-sought figures and unknown rarities, simply hoping to come across something unexpected. In every collector’s heart there are two dreams: to discover by chance in the dusty back room of a small shop the box you have dreamed about for years; or to find a box or a figure that no one has ever identified before, or whose traces were lost in remote ages. And maybe to realize too into the bargain that the seller is unaware of having such an exquisite item. Consequently, that he is also unaware of its value. Thus in our dreams he will sell us that precious little box of a magic gloss red at his ‘best price’ of £6 and 37 pence.

Hunting, searching, is even more exciting in my view than a planned purchase (at an auction, for example), because it can also occur by chance, and involves these dreams.

I must say that these dreams remain disregarded for the most part, except perhaps in the years between the war and Swinging London, back when you could have such strokes of luck in one of the many stalls in the bric-à-brac markets. Read the experience of James Opie, when he was a boy cycling in search of toy soldiers, and you will better understand what I mean. I must add, however, that some miracles happened to me. For example, at an exhibition in Rome I ran into a bewildered collector of toy cars holding an original cardboard box of composition ‘Garibaldini’ (Garibaldi red-shirts) by Rovello, a renowned Italian brand of the 1950s. He was wandering about, looking for a buyer: I suddenly caught him, and I bought a troop of eight Garibaldini for 10,000 lire (then about £6), each of which is now worth at least 45 euro (about £39). But it is also true that some years ago, when I took my first steps in collecting civilians, I paid 25 euro for a Britains bench which I later found out was worth just 7. Punished by the law of retaliation! And to think that a few lines ago I was writing that the price does not matter to us collectors.

We have a huge range of desires, between heart and mind. We are pleased when we satisfy one, but then we will have another one, and we will return to the hunt. Therefore it is hunting that is the real target, even more than the result. As the late Burtt Ehrlich, a famous collector, said: ‘Acquiring them is the fun. It’s a very exciting game, finding things before others do. I’m always looking for the great, hidden treasure. Can’t resist it.’

Collecting expensive masses of toy soldiers – in my opinion, at least – is not as important as the pleasure of the search. After the economic crisis of recent years, we now enjoy a toy soldier even more once we find it. This is because the pleasure comes from the excitement of hunting, desiring and finally finding a toy soldier, not from buying them one after another.

Collecting therefore can be expensive, but also low-cost. It goes without saying that we would all be happy to inherit a sum from an uncle in America that would allow us to buy hundreds of toy soldiers, but let us be satisfied with what we can afford.

Democracy and Empire

Collecting is democratic, and playing is imperial. I mean that by collecting you may know, appreciate and select a group of people. Instead, by playing you feel like Napoleon or Frederick of Prussia.

I had a privilege: being at the right age, I began visiting London – for me the Land of Cockaigne of toy soldiers – but also Paris in the 1970s. In those days toy soldiers were in decline in supply, but not in the desires of many collectors with whom you might familiarize at an antiques stall. Later, as a collector and as a manufacturer, I attended international auctions and shows, beyond the ocean too, that opened my heart and my mind … and very often my wallet. The community of collectors, mostly but not only Anglo-Saxon, is extraordinarily generous and curious, loves to exchange experience and information, and I never found meanness or provincialism. It is truly democratic.

I have dined with US Supreme Court judges who collected civilian figures, and with landscape architects who offered their clients a three-dimensional preview of their projects using huge Britains gardens in lead from the 1930s. I am a friend of authors of far more illustrious books than this, my modest work, of experts of international auction houses, of dealers, of many makers, of very rich collectors, but also of others as poor as church mice. One day in London, at a Phillips auction, I disputed a Britains box, I do not remember which one, with a grizzled collector with an American accent. For a while I raised my bid, but then I gave up because his bids were too high for me. Only at the end of the auction did I discover that I had held my own with Malcolm Forbes, a multimillionaire who owned a museum of toy soldiers in Tangier and another in New York, and who was a close friend of a certain Liz Taylor. Well, at the end of the auction he came to shake my hand to congratulate me on my taste … or perhaps on my stubbornness? I have never yet, I repeat never, met obstacles of belief, nationality, race or political views: the community of toy soldier collectors and makers is, dare I say, the most shining example of Plato’s Republic. Collecting toy soldiers resets all differences, opens the mind, makes us meet interesting people, whether we fly thousands of miles or we stay at home; it stimulates curiosity, intelligence, the critical and the aesthetic sense.

Let us speak now of how it can also be ‘imperial’ to play with or collect toy soldiers. I would like to state first that you can play with toy soldiers alone or in company, and mainly in two ways: as a game or solo playing. The former is called wargames, as we shall see further on, and is usually played by at least two, following predefined rules: throw the dice, move forward according to the result, fire a shot or a volley following numerical rules. Therefore, if you play Napoleon and have a strategic brain you can also happen to win at Waterloo. The second is the solo playing, my favourite, a solitary one, as I already said. You do as you like; I play alone, and with no rules other than those actually present in the real battles. This applies to chess, so why not to toy soldiers? It is a great effort to save the good guys (personified by us) from the traps of a skilled enemy (still us).

This is what imperial means to me: to have an empire that extends just to the size of the kitchen table, or of a small cabinet. Our army is barely the size of a patrol, maybe made up of only a dozen soldiers and three or four riders, but in our hands it performs amazing feats that Bonaparte would have dreamed of.

Re-enactment

Very often, finally, we collect because it is pleasant to re-enact, thanks to toy soldiers, something that really happened or existed, for example a given historical episode or a rare uniform. It is nice to study in books or libraries or on the internet the details of some battles or uniforms, and later represent them through toy soldiers. I have re-enacted almost all units present in the Indian Mutiny of 1857 in both 40mm and 54mm: almost 800 figures transformed and painted by me. A collector friend re-enacted an episode of 1805 from the ‘Barbary War’ involving a small detachment, some twelve if I remember well, of US Marines in North Africa, and regretted that his units overwhelmed two of the real ones. Another collects Alpini mountain batteries, drawn by mules: he has so many that if we Italians had had such a number, we would have won the war!

Thanks to toy soldiers we can stage a true story, which we can then enrich to our liking with historical detail or with our imagination.

In the past, a certain national turbulence and a certain politically and historically incorrect cinema allowed manufacturers and players of toy soldiers to re-enact spontaneously the various picturesque fights of the world. Today, everything is strictly censored or ‘culturally re-examined’, and must be ‘politically correct’. It would therefore be unthinkable to cheer for the 7th Cavalry against the Indians! The movies try hard to explain how the Alamo defenders were all losers or jinxed, or how Alexander the Great was more interested in the backsides of his soldiers than in the chests of his enemies. Indeed, in general the enemy is analyzed in the name of sociology: the result is essentially that the villain is a poor man suffering from bills falling due, and we are the good guys, essentially pacifists, forced by unspecified adverse entities to slay one another.

Besides, how can playing the UN against the Taliban attract us, or Syrians against ISIS? Where did the panache finish up? In short, is there no fun left in playing with toy soldiers? Of course there is: how about our imagination? We can always recall centuries of ‘Lace Wars’, or even in armour or khaki. We can always put the good before the bad guys, or recreate stories. For those who like it, there is always Fantasy, where you can turn over a new leaf and organize skeletons against ninja, or Sci-Fi, where a second Achilles in a space-suit will fight a Hector from Beta Centauri instead of Troy. Our imagination will always provide new stories to play out with our little brothers.

Smiling

I have tried to convey what my reasons are for collecting and play. However, I realize that from the beginning to the end of the story there is only one point: we do it to smile. Every day we have opportunities to laugh for fun or for vulgarity, but few to smile. Smiling is a rare thing, it comes from within, and often does not even get to our lips; it stops in the heart, but I know it is there. It is the same with toy soldiers, they seem arrayed in front of me, but their best parades and their wildest charges are in my heart. Thus I cannot but smile when I look at them.

Bibliography Chapter 1

Thomas Brussig, Am kurzeren Ende der Sonnenallee, 2001

CHAPTER 2

Archeosoldiers: between play and religion (c. sixth century BC to c. sixth century AD)

Every author who writes on the origins of toy soldiers has lined up – an expression more appropriate than ever – both funerary figures and toy figures in the proper sense. This is more than understandable if we consider how difficult is to distinguish, in a burial mound, ritual objects from playful ones. Therefore let us try to differentiate them. Military or civilian figures in a tomb can be the toys of a buried child or represent votive figures of an adult. I am speaking in general, irrespective of the culture to which the mound belongs.

In the case of a child, parents had the habit of arranging some toy soldiers (or dolls, etc.) in the grave of the little corpse in order that he might continue playing with them in the afterlife. We can define these soldiers as ‘comfort toys’. In addition, they might also, as Garratt reminds us, represent the soldier that the child himself might have liked to become.

When instead we find military figures in the mound of an adult, we speak of ‘signs’ related to the dead. Hence – by definition – of ‘something that stands for something else’ (C.S. Peirce).

What do these figures, which are not toys, mean? The continuation of life after death. They work like tomato puree, which in contact with heat releases its essence into the sauce. These instead release in the afterlife their essence of warriors. Imagine them as freeze-dried soldiers which will come back to life in the hereafter to give prestige to the dead. You never know: in the life to come some bodyguards might come in handy. Similarly, it was an ancient custom to sacrifice soldiers and authentic slaves in the tomb. Ortmann observes that among the Sumerians of c. 3500 BC it was the custom to bury all the servants of a dead prince with him so that they could continue serving their master in the afterlife. Later, figurines took their place. Thus such votive figurines are likely ‘signs’ of a former human sacrifice: that is, they ‘stand in’ for it. In turn, their souls – freeze-dried – would come back to life in the new dimension after death. Here I am afraid I do not agree with the authoritative Massimo Alberini, who calls them ‘representations, miniatures of things, either animated or not, which were impossible to include in the burial’. There were lots of things ‘impossible’ to take along, but not all of them reduced in miniature: many – such as shields, armour and even chariots – are present in the tomb at full size. We prefer the balanced view of Garratt, who believes it is possible that many figures could serve a twofold purpose, play and votive. So these figures have certainly also had a celebratory and consolatory function, but I think that they are above all simulacra waiting to come to life again along with the dead. In the case of military figures in adults’ graves, therefore, I suggest speaking not of toy soldiers, but of grave goods, or votive goods, in the sense of furnishing. That is: ‘In the language of the archaeologists, the set of objects [my emphasis] unearthed in a dig’ (Encyclopedia Treccani). Or: ‘belonging to the apparatus of useful or pleasing things with which men have in all ages equipped their daily life’ (Professor Baldwin, quoted by Garratt).

Otherwise, as I said, if I have to describe the 1:1 terracotta warriors found in the famous Chinese tomb as ‘toy soldiers’, I would have to include the inflatable dolls of the porn-shops too among the civilian figures!

Nonetheless, I have to start right from the votive figures of Egyptian warriors. These unquestionably represent big toy soldiers, even if that is not what they are. I am talking about the very familiar figures in wood and plaster found in the tomb of prince Mesehti, from the eleventh Dynasty, dating back to about 2000 BC.

These are warriors 20cm in height found during excavations in Siout, or Asyut, Upper Egypt: light and heavy infantry with metal-topped spears and wooden, leather-covered shields, usually ranged in nine rows of four figures each, but also cavalry and charioteers. For the lovers of civilian figures we have models of houses, granaries, labourers at work and servants, and fully equipped Nile-boats. Just look at them and you will immediately want to play with them. Nevertheless, they are not for play, so let us try elsewhere.

Picture 2.1: Pinterest saved by denis koroll.

Many Minoan period artefacts from 1600–1500 BC, in metal or clay, still appear to be toys. Other funerary furnishings of a military character, chariots and metal horsemen, but also animal figurines or a small cart, were found in Rosegg, Carinthia, and date back to 1000 BC. Others, made from precious metals, were found at Frog, cleverly glued onto burial urns by a resin-like substance.

Many Roman flat gladiators and legionaries in miniature – but also many splendid humorous civilians, reflecting daily life – seem instead to be more clearly real toy soldiers and figurines. These figures are in light relief, sculpted on one side only, and are likely the direct ancestors of our flat toy soldiers. P.O. Stearns suggests that the Romans also used such legionaries for sandbox tactics, an early form of wargaming indeed. Their wide diffusion suggests a kind of commercial production of toy figures, since archaeologists found them almost everywhere: Spain, Germany, England and even Abyssinia. The lead figure of a light infantryman (a velite), or perhaps a gladiator, of the third century AD, unearthed in the Rhine near Mayence, is by now famous.

Such production was also possible because the Romans seized important metals such as tin and lead, digging mines in occupied countries.

Instead, we have mentions, but no documents, by ancient authors who report the existence of a ‘Troy game’, where a little Trojan horse containing warriors was used (H. Harris). I confess that I am excited just thinking about it. It was originally what we would today call a ‘gadget’, sold during the Lusus Troiae. This last was a Roman public game of collective skill, very important, that celebrated the Trojan origins of the city. Thus someone had the idea of selling a real toy, composed of the wooden horse with the warriors inside, to Roman children. After all, this business was already successful as a souvenir for ‘tourists’ on the site of the ancient city of Troy. It seems also that the book Vergilius Vaticanus, which was already in the Bembo Library, and from which Raphael also drew inspiration, contains an illustration of these toy soldiers that come down through a trapdoor in the belly of the miniature wooden horse.

Picture 2.2: Roman Gladiator, British Museum.

According to Garratt’s Encyclopaedia, flat Trojan and Greek equestrians have been unearthed, together with clay and terracotta figurines, which are likely to have been playthings. Similar examples have mostly been found in the graves of children, notably at Sestieri [sic] in Greece (fifth century BC). A seventh century BC Greek warship containing five warriors with shields (British Museum) also belongs in this category, as well as an Athenian war chariot (Kunsthistorishes Museum, Vienna) and a complete group of 400 cavalry found at Wasit, southern Iraq, in 1942. Still within the Aegean in classical Greece, we find other archaic terracotta pieces, reputed by Garratt as nothing more than children’s toys, such as dolls with jointed limbs and figures of horsemen and animals.

Often, as in Tempa del Prete near Paestum (southern Italy), warlike games for older boys such as a bronze toy-cuirass were found, like that worn by the Lucanian warriors, only smaller. Again, there were many animals, dolls and figurines and ‘toy’ soldiers in terracotta. This occurred only in children’s graves, because those of adults do not contain similar figurine ware.

Picture 2.3: Museo-antiquarium-turritano.

In Sardinia, in the Nuragic sanctuaries of the Sacred Wells, figures of uncertain attribution between toy and votive offering have been unearthed: hundreds of figurines from the seventh century BC, wearing tall helmets, with short swords and small shields. They are useful in the study of the life of the early inhabitants of the island, probably Phoenicians, people also called ‘Shirdanu’, from which we have ‘Sardinians’.

The Museo Antiquario Turritano in Porto Torres shows a wonderful warrior with crossed belts, oval breastplate, round shield and articulated legs, in line with the Roman tradition of articulated dolls and figures, and whose face is clearly inspired by Roman plasticity. But his weaponry, long apparel and a curious Phrygian-like helmet with a kind of chinstrap make him more probably a local warrior than a ‘Roman legionnaire’, as claimed in the catalogue.

Other figures, plainly toys, were also found in Amelia, Umbria, dating back to the fifth century BC, Etruscan or pre-Italic. From Spain comes instead a beautiful group of little warriors in bronze (votive or toys?), mounted for the most part, of the fifth century BC. Distinctive is their typical Iberian shield slung on the back.

The Romans, as we said, left us many warlike figures, likely to be toys, but also civilian figures. Many of these objects saw the light in the last century on the Esquiline Hill in Rome; today perhaps we would call them ‘local produce’.

Many more are in major European museums. In the Museum of Decorative Arts in Cologne there are some Roman metal toys representing a flat cockerel, a chair in the round and other figures apparently intended for a ‘unisex’ game.

The Marquis Olivieri found some religious toy figurines in Pesaro, including small altars; the same had already happened in Sarsina in 1749. Fosbroke in his Encyclopaedia of Antiques calls them ‘lararium puerile’ (a children’s altar). This suggests that Roman children played at the sacred mysteries, just as those baptized centuries later – including myself – did with Nativity figures.

We can without doubt call the little flat knight metal figure found in Rosegg an example of a true toy soldier. I imagine him in battle array with his comrades, on the table in the back of some caupona (tavern), all commanded by the delightful miniature mounted Julius Caesar found in Pesaro. Garratt considers these figures ‘the later development of the flat tin soldier’.

Last but not least, let us mention the Roman rider of a later period (AD 280), dating from the Celtic invasion of Thrace, or all of the gladiators and legionaries brought to light in Britannia – sorry, England.

Picture 2.4: Chripta Balbi, Rome.

Let me conclude with another small knight in white clay found in Cologne in 1930, portraying a Celtic knight of the sixth century AD. The horse’s legs have a hole through them, where perhaps the wheel axels were located. The horse has his nose pierced, too, in order to draw the figure along by a lanyard. There is even the manufacturer’s signature: Roxtantius.

After the fall of the Empire, alas, we shall have to wait until the Crusades to have more news of our little friends.

Bibliography Chapter 2

Massimo Alberini, I soldatini, Istituto Geografico de Agostini, Novara, 1972

John G. Garratt, Model Soldiers, A collector’s guide, Seeley, Service & Co., London, 1971

John G. Garratt, The World Encyclopaedia of Model Soldiers, Frederick Muller Limited, London, 1981

Henry Harris, Model Soldiers, Soldatini, Ugo Mursia Editore, 1962

Erwin Ortmann, The Collector’s Guide to Model Tin Figurines, Studio Vista, London, 1974

CHAPTER 3

The Profession of Arms(c. thirteenth to eighteenth century)

Thirteenth to sixteenth century

From the fall of the Roman Empire until the early 1700s, the toy soldier seems to have almost completely lost the playfulness that he had barely managed to uphold between graves and tombs. The figures found are mostly votive. They might be in silver, or humble baubles embossed on one side in tin for the less wealthy. When they were broken, they were not thrown away but melted down as valuable scrap. In 1200, rich tin deposits were discovered in the Bohemian Forest, but from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century mining in Germany became concentrated in the hands of few owners. Erwin Ortmann wrote:

‘Devotional objects made of lead or tin could nevertheless be available to quite all classes, and used as personal talismans. They were also issued by many places of pilgrimage, whose miracle-working image was considered sacred.’

The pilgrims wore them in their cap or hung around the neck, or else on their pilgrim’s staff, to bear witness to their journey to holy sites.

A good example is a finely engraved Thomas à Beckett figure, flat on one side only.

Still, these figures serve as recognition marks or ‘ID tags’ of former fighters to show their participation in the Crusades or the like. The soldiers used to wear, hanging from the neck, figures of St George and the Dragon, St Martin or an archer, who symbolized the martyrdom of St Sebastian.

Very likely, children later played with these objects because the brooch pin broke, or because they received them as a gift at the end of the pilgrimage. I myself as a child went into battle with my little wooden rifle, and my father’s War Cross pinned on my chest.

Picture 3.1: Ex Voto, Cluny Museum.

It is likely that children of older days were keen to play with whatever was suitable to stimulate their imagination, probably much more than today. According to Ortmann:

‘This made craftsmen produce toys for their own children, tin sheep, donkeys, cattle and herdsmen. Neighbours were then interested, and a general demand would be created as a consequence. Of uncertain nature are the strips found in Magdeburg, consisting of three recurring groups of six figures each, including tilting knights, animals, and a gateway.’

Later, in 1578, the Nuremberg Council authorized the local Guild of pewterers and jewellers to produce toy figurines specifically made for children. There are also some aristocratic household objects, such as the splendid knight who is nothing but a bronze jug, or aquamanile, now in the British Museum.

We have some other evidence of toy soldiers, like a little flat knight found at Cluny in France. Embossed on one side only, a small stand allows it to remain upright. It is likely indicative of, if not mass production, at least a partially commercial one. Its date is 1346, the year of the Battle of Crécy. Besides this, we know terracotta figures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, equestrian for the most part, such as those of the Klatovy Museum in the Czech Republic, or those unearthed in Quarre-les-Tombes (Yonne, France).

During the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, military figurines appeared from time to time as toys or objets d’art, but they would have been costly and reserved for wealthy classes. A toy for the future military class’s education is what Garratt calls the ‘Jousting Knight’. This is a toy soldier and is for play, but also – to combine duty with pleasure – to learn the Profession of Arms.

Few children of the aristocratic class, destined to arms, enjoyed the privilege of owning it. It was a toy soldier of an average height of some 20cm. Generally mounted, it also existed in a dismounted version, as we shall see. It was in metal, with some parts in wood or plaster. Fully articulated, it carried counterweights at the foot and was fully ‘dressed’ like its real counterpart. Clothing, in fabric, lies beneath the armour. The latter is composed of metal plates of exquisite workmanship, and includes interchangeable shields and helmets. It was necessary to play in pairs, not only for fun, but also to train for real combat. That means two rich children, each owning a rich toy knight. Through ingeniously threaded strings, the fighters were steered like puppets. The wheeled wooden horses charged, and the winner unhorsed his opponent, who, cleverly counterbalanced by the craftsman, made a spectacular fall. Usually, these knights were properly provided with fragile spears, designed to disintegrate on impact, just as would happen in a real tournament. Very often, the pair was formed by a good and a bad guy, usually a Christian and a Saracen. I can imagine the disappointment of the child whom the Saracen belonged to. Probably it was similar to that of us children of the 1950s, when playing cowboys and Indians we drew the part of the Indians instead of the Seventh Cavalry.

Picture 3.2: Tilting Knight, Cluny Museum.

These knights were therefore toy soldiers intended for children of the ruling class, to make sure that they familiarized themselves with the Profession of Arms that inevitably awaited them. Furthermore, it kept alive the honour of chivalry, making children from this class revive the glory of the tournament, which was almost on the decline. We have evidence that the Emperor Maximilian, on 22 January 1516, ordered from one Kolmar, helmet-maker and master-smith in Augsburg, two such knights armed with lances and mounted on wooden horses for his 10-year-old son, King Ludwig II of Hungary.

The ‘Jousting Knight’ therefore benefits from a certain cross-diffusion between the various European areas – always bearing in mind that we are faced with handicraft production at the highest level, but certainly not commercial.

Contemporary texts let us discover the existence of this toy. In one, the Hortus Deliciarum by the Abbess Herrada of Landsberg, an illustration shows two children playing with jointed dummies on foot, animated by strings.

Picture 3.3: Hortus Deliciarum.

In Weiss Kunig by Hans Burgkmair, a woodcut shows a young prince (who later became the Emperor Maximilian) playing with a companion at the joust game (H. Harris). If one wishes to see them on a trip, it is possible to find survivors of these refined figures in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Royal Museum in Canterbury, the Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck or the Bayerisches Museum of Munich, where Garratt reveals that the figure depicted with the Holzschurer coat of arms is the counterpart of the ‘Saracen’ of the Poilhac Collection of Paris: the two probably constituted the Christian-Infidel couple.

The same author reports that a certain William Platter, aged 6, received ‘a wooden little man that when manoeuvred can fight’. Around 1600, William of Bavaria had the custom of giving persons of rank some small, tipping-over knights, animated by a clockwork mechanism.

J. Nicollier writes:

‘Acting at the pull of a string these primitive antagonists are the ancestors of those automatons which, in a much perfected state, appeared in great numbers as early as the 17th century. And towards the end of the last century [viz. nineteenth], a number of itinerant vendors on the pavements of Paris displayed their clockwork cyclists, acrobats, dancers and soldiers, all assured of a ready sale at a cheap price to interested customers.’

Still with clockwork, and supposedly for titled children rich as Croesus, are many other toys and knick-knacks of the seventeenth century: the ship of Charles V with crew and various figures in motion preserved at Cluny; that of the Rothschild collection bearing the mark of Esaius zur Linden (1609–32); or even the one built by Hans Schlott, currently at the British Museum. They are all rich in animated clockwork figurines, however, beyond our research. Sets of soldiers, fully equipped with guns and other warlike engines, appeared in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One such collection belonged to Henry, Prince of Wales (died 1612), and was kept at St James’ Palace, London (Ortmann).

Things were different, however, for those who were not noble.

In ancient times, there was a sense of collective belonging to the great empires. Not surprisingly, the soldiers probably wore a uniform, such as the Macedonian or Roman army. In the Middle Ages, however, there is a culture locked in on itself, fragmented. Focused on local authorities, traditionally contrary to attempts at national unification, the lord fights for his own micro-world. He does not wear a uniform, but armour with a surcoat, which in turn shows the blazon. This represents the honour of a specific noble family, whether or not in the service of a greater power. The one who fights in the ranks, on foot, is instead cannon fodder. He has no sense of a ‘state’, but feels that he is a property of the noble leader, who can dispose of his life as he pleases.

As a result, during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the noble presents his son with toy soldiers specially designed to educate him to arms, while whoever is not noble, on the contrary, not only has more limited economic means, but has no reason to let his son play with toy soldiers in general. They would not trigger in the boy any sense of national belonging, but only the threat of a probable inglorious death for his own noble master. Probably there were instead wooden toys of agricultural nature, to start off the child of the working classes on his future duties as an adult, always hoping that he came out alive from the wars of his master. Also due to this situation, perhaps, no traces survive of other toy soldiers but the ‘Jousting Knight’.

Here, actually, we can already define how the toy soldier, to stay alive through the centuries, seems to have needed two things as social background: a sense of collective identity, of societal belonging, and a shared and recognizable dress, a uniform.

Sixteenth to seventeenth century

From the end of the sixteenth century into the seventeenth century, the toy soldier has two polar opposites. One, as we shall see, is tinged with mystery. Let us start, however, with that of the royal or aristocratic toy soldier, which has its apogee under Louis XIV, the ‘Sun King’.

The aristocratic toy soldier

Already in the reign of Louis XIII the nobility was destined to arms or the church, thus the French royal children played mock warfare as a widespread pastime. Indeed, writes Garratt, with France at its maximum bellicosity and arrogance, the time was ripe for military successes, even in miniature. Thus at the court of Louis XIII begins the richest collection of toy soldiers in the world, which was to grow during the next two royal generations. At the beginning, according to Garratt, we are told that he:

‘[played] at soldiers with his little lords, dressed in a complete suit of armour, carrying a diminutive pike, and shouting come on soldiers! March! On guard! He also had bows and arrows, swords … a mounted Turkish trumpeter, trumpets and drums in great profusion.’

In 1608, Maria de Medici gave her son Louis XIII a small army of 300 soldiers (bonshommes) of silver, but ‘forgot’ to pay the goldsmith Nicolas Roger, whose bill was honoured only once the Dauphin became king.

At his death, the collection passed to his son, Louis XIV. It grew with the help of the silversmith Georges Chassel, and was completed by the goldsmith Merlin at a cost of 50,000 crowns. The collection comprised cavalry, infantry and military engines.

Later on, the king in turn provided his eldest son, Louis de France, Duc de Viennois, with the finest miniature army of them all. This remarkable army, reports Garratt, had figures 7cm high, made in silver by Jacob Wolrab, with automatic devices provided by Hans and Gottfried Hautsch, goldsmiths, silversmiths and compass-makers. The great military architect Vauban designed it, and invented the machinery to manoeuvre, shoot and retreat the figures. The pikemen tried to unseat the horsemen, but these were ready to reply by firing their pistols.

In addition to these precious armies, the king also maintained an army of paper toy soldiers produced by Henry de Gissey, consisting of twenty squadrons of cavalry and ten regiments of infantry. For them, on 27 September 1670, de Gissey was paid ‘26,963 livres 14 sous’, while the painter Pierre Couturier received for his work ‘305 livres’.

The silver army, afterwards melted down and converted into cash, paid off the war debts of the Monnaie (the French Treasury). The army of paper seems to have disappeared already at the time the French Revolution. Even if a kind of legend recounts it still preserved at the Musée de l’Armée, Les Invalides, its custodians deny this. Sic transit gloria mundi!

Other rulers had similar armies, less lavish than those of the French kings and made of less noble material, such as the wooden toy soldiers of the Elector of Bavaria, a typical product of the German tradition. In 1674, Matthias Schulz, wood-carver, was ordered by the Prince Elector to repair twenty-seven soldiers and drummers. The following year, he carved for the prince six musketeers equipped with muskets, six wagons of artillery, a corporal, two drummers and two pipers.

The future King Philip IV of Spain received as a child in 1614 an army of wooden soldiers, including twenty-four pages of instructions in Castilian entitled ‘Imago militiae auspiciis Ambrosii Spinolae belgicarum copiarum ductoris’, that is, ‘Copy of the soldiers of the auspicious Ambrosius Spinola, commander of the Belgian troops’. It reproduced the Spanish forces then fighting in the Low Countries. According to Parker’s The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567-1659, published in London in 1972 and mentioned by Adducci and Barlozzetti (‘Il piombo di Napoleone’), it is probably the first wargame documented in Europe, the author of which, Albertus Struzzus, was an Italian banker. Thanks to an internet post of 18 June 2012 by Aart Brouwer, we learn that together with other military trophies the army was destroyed by fire in the royal palace in Madrid on 9 July 1884. The same is also mentioned by Parker:

‘[This army] included infantry regiments and cavalry companies with their various banners, weapons and equipment; horses and cannon for the artillery; the distinctive shops and tents of the armourers, sutlers and other camp followers; and special materials to construct artificial lakes, forests and pontoon bridges. There was even a toy castle for the army to besiege. And this, the first child’s war-game known in Europe, was to give education as well as enjoyment.’

It seems that, as happened under Maria de Medici, Struzzus (or Struzzi) was paid only some fifteen years later, in 1630, according to an instruction found in the Archivio General de Simancas, Spain, to pay one ‘Alberto Struçi que truxo el exercito de figuras’ (‘Alberto Struzzi who carved the model army’). Quite naïvely, he had written in his manual: ‘This army will be no less useful than entertaining. From it, one may observe the expenditure which is necessary if a king is to emerge victorious, and how if money (which is the sinews of war) fails, the prince’s intentions cannot be achieved.’

Again, we recall the Kunstschrank, a casket full of copper and bronze figures, including an equestrian St George and the Dragon, which in 1632 Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden received as a gift from the town of Augsburg. William I of Orange in the sixteenth century played with formations of tin soldiers in order to better study the reform of the Dutch Army. It is unknown what these figures looked like, whether they were flat or round. Neither their number nor their maker is known. Garratt reports that in the early seventeenth century the St James armoury was home to a large collection of toy soldiers inclusive of war machines, for the education of Henry, Prince of Wales, who died in 1612.

In the Museum of San Martino in Naples there is a small army of paper figures, painted on both sides by the Gin brothers. It depicts Bourbon and Sardinian troops in parade at the Campo di Marte, at their head Ferdinand II (M. Alberini). It belonged to the Bourbons, then passed from hand to hand in aristocratic families, arriving at last in the museum’s collection. We shall speak of this paper army later.

Just to stay on the subject, a ‘royal’ model army was presented to the infant King of Rome (the Aiglon) by his parent Napoleon on 22 March 1812. At first, these figures were made of gold, the original work of J.B. Claude Odiot, jeweller of the emperor, as was officially recognised in 1960.

Picture 3.4 : Soldats de plomb du Roi de Rome. Fondation Napoléon Patrice Maurin-Berthier.

They represented a Corsican regiment (considering the origins of the giver), the 22nd Light Artillery, or Infantry, according to their last owner, Lieutenant Colonel De Pierres. We may mention his words, reported by J. Nicollier: ‘These little soldiers are 1⅜ i. high [about 3.5cm]. The entire set consists of 120 pieces comprising a colonel, staff, band, Colours and guard in full dress, and two companies (ranks and appointments marked on the top of the shakos).’ It seems that originally a companion set of the 21st also existed, but alas it was dispersed. They were taken away by Queen Hortense, and returned to the little exiled, altered by the goldsmith A. Grapin to make them look like Austrian soldiers ‘with the connivance of Marie-Louise’. They reverted to the Imperial family in the Second Empire (in 1862), restored to the 22nd, as a toy of the Imperial Prince. The small army still survives in the possession of a noble French family, the De Pierres, to whom on 4 September 1870 it was presented by the Empress Eugénie, mother of their previous owner Louis the Prince Imperial (Dilley, Stearns).

Baron de Pierres in Nicollier continues:

‘The set is generously provided with secret hiding-places (false bottoms and cavities excavated in the mass of metal and sealed with wax) which contained messages from Napoleon to his son. These were found by the goldsmith A. Grapin in 1821–1822 when the conversions were made.’

A repro edition of these figures is currently available from Tradition Ltd of London.

Apparently a detective story lies behind these figures. Blondieau in fact explains them away as ‘curiosities, pawns’, or ‘board game figures’, because in his experience he often saw them arranged in wooden bars. He is sceptical of their claimed rarity or originality, for he often met them here and there, and in at least three different variations (see the pictures on page 565 of his book): ‘Now, these subjects often claimed as princely belongings are in lead, of naïve appearance, and you may continue looking for the least punch of a maker on them.’ Furthermore, it is said that the King of Rome received them in 1811, but they wear the typical 1812 uniform – coat fully buttoned, waistcoat not in view; the shako with the 1814 oval plate instead of the eagle, and, may I add, sometimes the Bourbons’ lily; and finally, some are painted, some are not. Since Blondieau also notes some letters painted on the top of the shakos, such as ‘L’ for ‘lieutenant’, ‘C’ for ‘capitaine’ and ‘S’ for ‘soldat’, he thus concludes that they most probably were of Kriegspiel origin. Perhaps we may close this dispute with the proverb ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’. Or you may also decide that the illusion is definitely better than reality, and keep on dreaming of that unfortunate child playing with his imaginary army, looking for his father’s glory.

Picture 3.5: Royal Scots R.U.S. Edinburgh.

Harris also reports how Napoleon III owned seventy-five soldiers in calcium sulphate, destroyed at the Tuileries where they were on display at the time of the Commune in 1871. He also ordered from Mignot some toy soldiers for his son, later killed in Zululand in southern Africa, where he fought with honour under the English flag.

Peter II of Russia had instead – recounts Catherine the Great in her memoirs – ‘a huge number of wooden, lead, putty and wax toy soldiers’. Every day he attended in person the ‘changing of the guard’, in uniform. Heinrichsen manufactured for Tsar Nicholas a remarkable, complete collection of the regiments of the Guard. Schloss Gmunden holds ten figures from the King of Hanover collection. The Hohenzollern Museum in Berlin kept a collection, now mysteriously disappeared, of 140 figures of Prussian regiments, formerly the property of King Frederick William III.

J. Nicollier recalls:

‘I have read somewhere that Queen Mary of England, the consort of George V, confessed to a failing, which consisted in keeping in her treasure-chest numerous old dolls and lead soldiers, mostly broken, which had belonged to her many grandchildren … However not all these miniature infantrymen, gunners and cavalrymen derive from royal collections … One of the bravest soldiers of the Napoleonic Era, Captain Coignet, a typical example of the officer promoted from the ranks, tells us in his Cahiers that, as a recently-promoted corporal, he bought two hundred wooden soldiers and would arrange them in order of battle.’

Real and fake toy soldiers ‘found’ in the Thames and the Seine

All this should be enough to deal with the royal, or aristocratic, soldier. Now let us turn to the already mentioned ‘mysterious’ or ‘folk’ version, which concerns the figures of the sixteenth and seventeenth century.

To look for more ‘folk’ figurines we have to fish them from the Thames and the Seine rivers, which over time have returned many flat figurines belonging to pilgrims.

Numerous examples of them, and also of toy soldiers of the period, come from the work of dredging near the Old London Bridge between 1836 and 1850. Other French toy soldiers fished out of the Seine are now in the Museum of Cluny.

Some of these latter date back to the French Henry IV (1589–1610), such as a delightful musketeer with helmet (casque), with others dating from the early years of the following reign. Others are closer to Louis XIII (1601–43), such as a musketeer or arquebusier, 10cm high, wearing a helmet and clad in a doublet, with his well-sculpted equipment. The belt has its hanging powder charges, which earned the nickname of ‘the 12 apostles’. There is also the horn-shaped bottle for the gunpowder, but he lacks his arquebus.

Picture 3.6: Cluny Museum, Arquebusier.

Last but not least there are the little models of French solids with uniforms of the Ancien Régime from the seventeenth to eighteenth century, also recovered from the Seine, pictured in Garratt’s book in plate 21, and many more.

These were likely the toy soldiers with the most ‘folk’ diffusion, even if probably not necessarily any less expensive for that.

Nineteenth century

Now let us focus on the ‘mystery’. Around the end of the first half of the 1800s – thus, you will note, during the Romantic period – these ‘findings’ had a sudden surge. Several figures appeared in public and private collections, and at higher and higher prices. It did not take long to realize that they were carefully faked, and their workshop was identified on Rue de la Huchette.

Lock-keepers of doubtful morals were paid to drop the figures into the river, where – after a suitable delay – they fished them out again. The Abbé Barbier de Montault, quoted in Garratt, says:

‘Their design is coarse, their execution merely approximating to the original, the back is criss-crossed in little marks of a particular kind, so that the mud of the river may adhere to it … then finished with a graver … and covered by irregular marks in a jerky style, like a kind of engine-turning in order to give the surface a worn and ancient appearance.’

Picture 3.7: Musketeer 17th c. or a fake (Pinterest).

His study appeared in the Jouet Français in an article by Roger Vaultier (1956).

A similar phenomenon happened in London, where ingenious mud-rakers used to ‘find’ figures cast by themselves at the pier under construction in Shadwell: a collector around 1857 paid as much as £346 for 1,100 figures. The collectors, following the romantic spirit of the time, eager for objects in decay, evidently bought these figures more for their allure than for their value. An expensive allure indeed, I guess. For this reason it is still difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff. These figurines are nowadays either lovingly collected or publicly displayed. Nevertheless, how many of them are true and how many instead – even artistically – created out of whole cloth? A mystery, precisely.

Non-military figurines

We need to hold a separate discussion for the non-military toy figurine. At the dawn of toy figurines, the ‘civilian or religious’ production may have exceeded that of the military, but later they went hand in hand. We have already discussed how even Roman children were playing at the ‘Mysteries’ with toy figurines and small altars. In the Middle Ages many sacred images in tin were sold as religious toys. The social structure in fact destined many second sons of noble families to the priesthood – real work was considered unseemly – as well as the more frail or intelligent children of farmers. This therefore led many children to ‘play the priest’. Other sacred images were familiar devotional objects to venerate at home (Alberini). The sacred evidently attracts children as much as the profane.

May I report a family experience of the Italy between the wars? My uncle Agostino used to play with a small Mass kit in tin for children, because he wanted to become a priest. My father re-cast his brother’s kit to manufacture some toy soldiers with home-made moulds – certainly a family mania – so my uncle renounced his vows, and afterwards got very happily married.

Bibliography Chapter 3

M. Alberini, cit.

Roy Dilley and Philip Stearns, Model Soldiers in Colour, Blandford Press, 1979

J.G. Garratt, Model Soldiers, a Collector’s Guide, London, Seeley Service & Co. Limited, 1971

H. Harris, Model Soldiers; Soldatini, Ugo Mursia Editore, 1962

J. Nicollier, Collecting Toy Soldiers, Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1967

E. Ortmann, The Collector’s Guide to Model Tin Figures, Studio Vista London, 1972P.O. Stearns, How to Make Model Soldiers, The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited, 1974

CHAPTER 4

Zinnfiguren und Drang (c. eighteenth century to today)

‘As the child grasped a toy soldier in his hand, he became an emotional captive of that tiny metal man’ (H. Kurtz and B. Ehrlich, The Art of the Toy Soldier, Introduction)

The first ‘modern’