Here’s some of what Arabella Grayson has learned about black paper dolls: Mid-1700s: Rich ladies in England and France make tiny paper dolls in their own images. 1810: Little Fanny, the first ...

Eighteenth-century iterations of paper dolls — hand-painted figures marketed to wealthy Europeans — were nearly as rarefied as the real-life versions of the towering headdresses and ruffled gowns they ...