The Bru Bebe Gourmand is not only one of the rarest dolls ever made, but also the most innovative doll. Some have never even heard of this doll. I am going to tell you about it.

    She was exceptionally beautiful with her peaches and cream complexion, her brown paperweight eyes that look almost topaz, and her pierced ears. Her eyelids are eyelids were molded and painted with lashes and her eyebrows done with 2 shades of brown. Her mouth, lips and nostrils were shaded with from dark to light and outlined. Her shoulderplate had matching color and detail with baby fat. Her torso and upper legs were kid leather, with kid upper arms curved at the elbows. Her little bisque hands were thick with dimples and the fingernails sculpted and oulined in color. The bisque legs did not appear on any Bru. They were sculpted with detail of a chubby baby or toddler.

    Bebe Gourmand's head was marked with the circle and a dot, and a 6. The shoulderplate was marked with the same incised IT found on many Bebe Teteur Brus. The kid body was glued to the shoulder platewith a pinked and scalloped strip. Glued to the body and the band was the typical BeBe Bru paper label printed in red.

     If you look inside the head, you would a mechanism like no other. This doll was made to feed! There would be remnants of a rusty, flat, metal band or spring anchored in plaster, just in front of the ears. Then, there was the long, plaster tongue that fit into the oval opening of the mouth. The metal band passed thru a slot in the tongue so that it was balanced, yet free to move at feeding time. The pellets for feeding were pressed into the opening of the mouth, pushing the tongue back far enough to allow entry of the pellet. When the doll was in a standing position, the pellet moved through a tin funnel in the neck to a tin tube in the body. The tube then branched off above the legs, continued through the thighs, and ended beyond the kid stubs of the upper legs. From there the pellet had a free fall through the hollow bisque legs to the open soles of the feet. The pellets could be retrieved by opening a tiny trap door in the sole of the Bru marked shoes. The upper of the shoes were no different than the other Bru shoes. Only the tiny trap door , in the sole with its fabric hinge, was unique!There was no fastener. The tight fit of the shoe held it in place.

     Bebe Gourmond could not sit, which was a disadvantage in a toy of this quality back then. This might be a reason why they are so rare now. There are only 2 known to exist. She came out in 1881, when Bru Jne & Co. advertised the invention of this BeBe. So Bru was the first to patent the feeding doll!