Linea Zero Bobblehead Rag Doll Table Lamp

Materials: Plastic (PVC). Fabric, probably cotton. Printed in green with red roses.  Bakelite socket.

Height: 28 cm / 11.02”

Width: ∅ 20 cm / 7.87”

Electricity: 1 bulb E14, 1 x 25 watt maximum, 110/220 volt.
Any type of light bulb can be used, not a specific one preferred.

Period: 1970s.

Designer: Enea Ferrari.

Manufacturer: NUZ srl, Nuova Linea Zero, Via Torino, 24, 37024 Negrar, Verona, Italy.

Other versions: Several different models of this Linea Zero bobblehead rag doll table lamp were produced. Other colour clothes, other figures and other dolls, as you can see below. This rag doll lamp was also made in blue, you can find it over here.

Nuova Linea Zero

The Linea Zero company was founded in Verona, Italy in 1973 by Enea Ferrari. It is the successor of OTF, Old Timer Ferrari, famous for the Toucan lamp and Olaf The Viking lamp. OTF was founded in 1964. Initially destined to the children’s market and subsequently extended to design.

The most famous lamps by Linea Zero are the bobblehead lamps designed in the 70s and a series of Pink Panther lamps in 1984 and Snoopy table lamps. The British red phone box was designed in 1990 and the Biplane in 1993. The company still exists. Today it is named Linea Zero S.a.s..

Several Linea Zero lamps were also sold by Massive, Belgium.

Also Stilfer from Milan produced bobble-head lamps. The most well known are the plastic robot and insect lamps they produced.

The electric parts were produced in the late 1970s by VLM Components from Italy.

This lamp is made in the style of the drawings made by Denise Holly Ulinskas, who created Holly Hobbie in the 1960s. Other drawings of little girls at that time were named Miss Petticoat and Sarah Kay. 

Sarah Kay

Vivien Kubbos, born in the 1940s, was a freelance illustrator from Sidney, Australia who began creating Sarah Kay collections for Valentines Sands Greeting Cards in the early 1970s. The name Sarah Kay has it’s origin in the name of her fathers dog Sarah and the Kay is K for Kubbos. The works of Vivien Kubbos were “discovered” by two book publishers from Liege in Belgium and extended to Germany, Italy, Spain and Latin America. It was an instant success.

Holly Hobbie

Vivien Kubbos wasn’t the first who draw girls figures with dresses with aprons and hats. It was Denise Holly Ulinskas with drawings from a girl named Holly Hobbie with a patchwork dress and a big hat. Denise Holly Ulinskas married Douglas Hobbie in 1964. In the late 1960s she designed for the American Greetings Company. Later in life she started to draw Toot & Puddle. In 2006, a redesigned Holly Hobbie was launched.

Miss Petticoat, Jaklien

Many others had success with this kind of art. In the UK it was Miss Petticoat that also became popular in the 1970s. In Belgium we had Jaklien (Jacqueline Moerman, 1931-2011).