Right in the heart of Old Lisbon, battered and broken dolls – some of which over a century old – are brought back to health in a creepy ‘hospital’.
The establishment, known as the Hospital de Bonecas, was founded in 1830 and is described in tourist guides for Portugal’s capital as one of the oldest toy infirmaries still in operation.
‘We have clients from all over the world and all ages. There are museums which ask us to restore pieces, also private collectors, but the vast majority of our clients are individuals – people who are sentimentally attached,’ said Manuela Cutileiro, 72, the hospital’s owner.
Piled on shelves and stored in bizarre see-through drawers, the happy, confused and sometimes outright weird faces of much-loved dolls stare on as they await their surgery.
Elsewhere, bizarre stacks of legs and arms long ago removed from bodies lie on tables awaiting reattachment.
Some 4,000 dolls can be found inside the hospital. There are 100-year-old dolls with porcelain heads, along with dolls dressed in costumes from different regions of Portugal, as well as some modern Barbies.
The establishment, known as the Hospital de Bonecas, was founded in 1830 and is described in tourist guides for Portugal’s capital as one of the oldest toy infirmaries still in operation. Piled on shelves and stored in bizarre see-through drawers, the happy, confused and sometimes outright weird faces of much-loved dolls stare on as they await their surgery. Pictured: One delighted face with an enviable head of hair stares out of a drawer alongside a less thrilled bald doll
Some 4,000 dolls can be found inside the hospital. There are 100-year-old dolls with porcelain heads, along with dolls dressed in costumes from different regions of Portugal, as well as some modern Barbies. Bizarre stacks of legs and arms long ago removed from bodies lie on tables awaiting reattachment (pictured) around the hospital. ‘We have clients from all over the world and all ages. There are museums which ask us to restore pieces, also private collectors, but the vast majority of our clients are individuals – people who are sentimentally attached,’ said Manuela Cutileiro, 72, the hospital’s owner
‘They say we are among the last in the world to do this work,’ says the owner, Cutileiro, a former school teacher. But she shrugs off accolades. ‘We do our work in our little corner, without worrying about records or statistics.’ The dolls all have a patient file and are painstakingly restored by the skilled hands of three women ‘surgeons’, who give them a new body part or hair, chosen from drawers full of pieces of dolls, a macabre collection of heads, limbs and eyes. Pictured: A chiaroscuro study of a strange-looking dolls wearing a floral necklace
The hospital, in the heart of Old Lisbon, treats patients who are small and fragile, often mangled and battered, and sometimes more than 100 years old. The loving care given at Lisbon’s doll hospital has been going on for five generations. Its origins go back to the 19th century when ‘a little old lady’, Carlota da Silva Luz, would make rag dolls, sitting in front of her herb shop in Praca da Figueira, where there was a large outdoor market. Over time, the aromatic and medicinal herbs gave way to shelves of dolls, which today fill a window display at the entrance to the hospital, with a museum dedicated to them on the first floor. Pictured: A tag with instructions is attached to the feet of a doll waiting to be repaired
‘For us a contemporary doll is 20 or 30 years old – the old ones are those which are already centenarians,’ says Cutileiro, who is carrying on the family enterprise. It seems as if the pace of times past continues at the doll surgery. There are no rush procedures here. ‘We make sure that time passes less quickly here than it does outside,’ says Cutileiro. ‘People have to wait.’ Pictured: Two dolls heads, including one with an older face, wait for their surgery at the Doll Hospital in Lisbon
A leg and an arm lie on a table at the hospital as a woman uses an instrument to perform surgery on a detached limb at the hospital
Farewell to Arms: A large pile of limbs is piled in a see-through drawer at the hospital as the surgeons get round to reattaching them
Dolls wait to be repaired at the Doll Hospital in Lisbon. An angel hangs from a shelf as, below, dismembered toys lie on bubble wrap
Several Barbie dolls and Action Man figures waiting to be repaired lie on a net at the strange facility in the heart of Portugal’s old capital
Left: A hirsute doll stands among other healthy-looking toys – including a frighteningly creepy-looking specimen on the right. Right: Small dolls with short, curly hair lie in piles at the hospital
Various doll parts can be seen through windowed shelves in the Doll Hospital, with decidedly clownlike group in the top right
A doll’s house at the Doll Hospital in Old Lisbon is displayed behind a variety of toys. To the right is what appears to be a doll greenhouse
A spooky shot of blue-eyed dolls staring into the abyss as they await surgery at the Doll House in Lisbon
There are about 4,000 dolls at the hospital, including the bizarre heads of two dolls shown above. Some of them are as old as 100
A doll with inflated, rosy cheeks is shown from the side as it awaits a body to be attached to so its owner can hold it once again
The Doll Hospital, which was established in 1830, is the temporary home for all kinds of dolls – including these unusual bushy-haired models
These delicate toys have been restored or collected with care and affection for five generations, at the Doll Hospital, a tiny repair shop located in the heart of old Lisbon downtown
Manuela Cutileiro, owner of the Doll Hospital, dresses up a doll in front of drawers of doll parts at the Doll Hospital in Lisbon
A woman repairs a doll at the hospital in Lisbon as a peculiar display of the toys looks on from a shelf nearby
A doll who has suffered severe head trauma and lost an arm is stored in bubble wrap as it awaits surgery to make it healthy again
Dolls in plastic bags wait to be delivered after being repaired at the Doll Hospital in Lisbon