Austrian artist Elli Riehl was a Carinthian doll-maker, but also painted dolls and created cloth dolls. She had to drop out of school because of World War I. When her parents’ carpentry business went bankrupt, she began designing dolls around 1932, making her hobby her profession. Riehl became known at the spring fair of Wien (Vienna) in 1934. After World War II she retired from Villach to the countryside and started creating portrait dolls. The rural environment was the main theme of the dolls made by Riehl. The Klagenfurt Verlag publishes an annual calendar with her dolls and artwork, and in 1973, a puppet museum was opened in her old house.
Austria