Lola Anglada's dolls return to the Sitges Museums in a new permanent and rotating space

The Sitges Museums are recovering one of their most unique and long-awaited collections. Starting on October 8, the Rocamora Space will host a new presentation of the Lola Anglada Doll Collection, which will allow the public to see a selection of these pieces after an important process of research, documentation, conservation and restoration.

The proposal was born with a desire for continuity. The Rocamora Space will become a permanent space with rotating content, which will progressively show different pieces from the Lola Anglada collection and other dolls and toys preserved in the Sitges Museums. This formula will increase their visibility and, at the same time, guarantee the conservation conditions that particularly delicate objects require.

The first selection will bring together around twenty restored dolls, representative of the chronological, geographical and material diversity of the set. You can see examples from Italy, France, Germany, Spain and Japan, dated between the end of the 17th century (one of them) and the first half of the 20th century, including automatons, mechanical dolls and pieces of fabric.

An intimate universe of Lola Anglada

Dolls occupied a special place in Lola Anglada's personal imagination. Her interest went beyond the world of childhood, popular culture and decorative arts and connected with her particular way of looking, transforming and creating.

Anglada bought and collected examples in very different states. Some arrived whole and dressed; others, undressed or dismembered. She dressed them herself, put them back together and, sometimes, also restored them. The dolls thus became much more than collectors' items and were incorporated into her creative universe.

Some were even given names by the artist herself. Among the selected pieces are Beatriu, an Italian doll from the late 17th or early 18th century; Elvira, dated between 1846 and 1855; Camila and Pastora, made in the last third of the 19th century; Delfina, an automaton from the Gustave Vichy factory in Paris, from 1878, and Arlequí, a mechanical doll from the Roullet & Decamps factory.

Research and restoration to recover the collection

The new presentation also culminates an important task of research and documentation of the collection. One of the milestones of this work was the publication, in 2025, of the catalog Dolls and Toys in the Sitges Museums. Collection of Lola Anglada, by Pere Capellà, the result of an extensive study of the collection with the active participation and involvement of the Collections team of the Sitges Museums. The research has allowed us to delve deeper into the identification and contextualization of the pieces and advance our knowledge of a set that also allows us to approach the history of the toy industry, material culture and childhood imaginaries.

This research work has been accompanied by an important conservation and restoration task developed by Montserrat Bargalló and Cristina Balaguer, especially complex due to the diversity of materials that make up the dolls, such as textiles, wood, porcelain, wax, metal, leather or celluloid. The intervention has required the study of the materials and manufacturing techniques, as well as the participation of professionals specialized in different disciplines.

The process has allowed us to stabilize the materials, recover the reading of the pieces and guarantee their future preservation, applying criteria of minimal intervention and respect for their authenticity. The objective has not been to return the dolls to an idealized appearance, but also to preserve the traces of time, the uses and transformations that are part of their history.

A collection to rediscover over time

The new presentation of the Espai Rocamora is not intended as a conventional temporary exhibition, but as a new way of making this heritage permanently accessible. The rotation of dolls will periodically renew the selection and will progressively reveal a much wider collection than can be shown simultaneously.

The Sitges Museums are thus opening a new stage for the conservation, study and dissemination of the Lola Anglada Doll Collection, reconciling the preservation of the specimens with the desire to make them accessible to the public. A living and renewing space that will allow you to discover, piece by piece, the creative universe of Lola Anglada and the rich collection of dolls and toys preserved in the Sitges Museums.