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But that sort of reproduction is not what we mean when we now say
“mass-produced.” No. Now counted in hundreds-per-minute, images of
the queen who saved England from Spain and the clutches of Rome can
appear on tea towels and playing cards, and tea cards (to be collected with
each new box of tea, the goal being a complete set); images of the queen
with the face of a cat adorn the lids of sweets tins in the gift shop of the
National Portrait Gallery. There are Elizabeth rulers, pencils, fans, paper
dolls, collectable dolls, even – I grieve to say it – Barbie dolls. Eight-sided
teapots offer scenes from the queen’s life. There are miniature action
figures called Gloriana. And, as if there were not enough items handy on
which to affix the royal image, there are also inventions. Harmony Ball
Pot Belly are small figurines made of resin, “detailed and whimsical rep-
resentations” of animals, people, and thematic objects. “These delightful
box figurines portray the round and humorous side of life,” says company
president and co-founder Noel Wiggins. “Each is named in homage to
celebrities known for living larger than life, both in character and in
stature.” The dimensions for each of these pieces is 1
1
⁄4” × 1
1
⁄4” all around.
Used to store small treasures in a decorative fashion (Figures 22 and 23),
19
the main function is decorative, since the actual storage space is very
small. In addition to Elizabeth and many, many little animals, the
following figures are also available: Winston Churchill, Abraham Lincoln,
Henry VIII, Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, William Shakespeare, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Queen of Sheba, Queen Victoria,
George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, King Louis XIV, Ulysses S.
Grant, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Queen Catherine the Great, Empress
Woo, Thomas Jefferson, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, General Robert
E. Lee, Queen Nefertiti, and (naturally) Marie-Antoinette.
And then there is the Celebriduck. Yes, Elizabeth I is manifest as a
rubber bath duck (Figure 24). In a happy exchange of e-mails with Craig
Wolfe, of Celebriducks, I learned that the Elizabeth duck was one of the
second set their company made (the first were Groucho and Betty Boop).
Paired with the Shakespeare duck, Elizabeth came out the same year as
Shakespeare in Love in a run of 5000 that sold out quickly. There’s now a
new Elizabeth model, “smaller, softer, squeak and float great … also new
packaging … a real upgrade,” according to Mr. Wolfe. They have also
“ducked” Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Santa Claus, and Mae West. Saying that
his daughter and wife, who design the ducks, are always pushing for
more female ducks, Wolfe promises his customers the dream of equal
opportunity. After branching out into sports figures, Wolfe’s sales rose
to “around a half million ducks sold this year [2002]” and still rising. When
the Elizabeth duck was new, Wolfe writes, “we even sent one to the
194 The Elizabeth Icon, 1603–2003
10.1057/9780230288836 - The Elizabeth Icon, 1603-2003, Julia M. Walker
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