HERBARIUM by artist Gioconda Pieracci of Pupillae Art Dolls

This work is inspired by the delicate and introspective world of Emily Dickinson, who gathered flowers and words with the same care, weaving nature and mystery together.
Her presence is that of a suspended fragment of time, of fertile solitude—like a secret garden blooming within the rooms of the soul, she carries with her echoes of unspoken verses.

Every element of the piece speaks of a desire to preserve beauty despite its transience—to cradle the fleeting, and let it endure in silence and form.
A living memory: of botany and poetry.

Work description:
The bust is sculpted in paper clay, with a matte, porous surface reminiscent of the fragile texture of antique pages. The hair, made of alpaca, delicately frames the face.
Set within the bust is a small brass box of Florentine craftsmanship, likely from the 1930s or 1940s (marked behind) —a precious relic that seems to hold memory itself, like a botanical reliquary. Within this small window lies a fragment of an old opera score, adorned with delicate hand-embroidered flowers, echoing the pages of a herbarium. 

Delicate floral motifs and a bee are engraved into the doll’s face, as if nature itself had left its mark upon her skin. Fragments of stiffened and painted fabric complete the piece. The colours evoke the faded tones of ancient herbariums.

The doll is housed in a box lined with floral embroidery on paper, on which rests a poem by Emily Dickinson, handwritten with dip pen and ink.
Every detail is designed to evoke the fragility and hidden beauty of forgotten things, in a delicate balance of poetry, nature, and memory.

Doll bust 9 x 4.5". She has a loop to be hung on the wall.
Box 10 x 7 x 4"