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Throughout
history, people have been fascinated by miniatures and
have made tiny replicas of life-size objects for many
different purposes. The ancient Greeks constructed models
of temples before building them. Toy-sized guns and armor
guided Medieval armament manufacturers. Cabinet makers used miniature
furniture as work samples. In the 18th century, dolls
meticulously dressed in the latest European fashions were shipped to the
New World so that colonial ladies could maintain an up-to-date attire.
And today, manufacturers frequently make small-scale
prototypes of new products as part of the development process.
Displays of miniatures apparently originated in Germany
in the 16th century. The most famous of those early displays were the
Nuremberg Kitchens, tiny duplicates
of people-sized kitchens frequently given to little girls as "educational
toys" of their time.
Wealthy burghers and noblemen of Germany and the Netherlands spent the
next couple of centuries displaying miniatures in "art"
cabinets, the shelves being divided into "rooms", completely
outfitted with furniture and accessories.
But it was Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria who commissioned the first doll
house of record- a four-story palace complete with ballroom,
chapel and zoo. The finished product, intended as a gift for his daughter,
so pleased the Duke, the story goes, that he immediately added it to his
art collection.
Since then, doll houses and their furnishings have continued
to intrigue both makers and collectors of all ages. Some
of the more famous examples include Queen Mary's doll house
in England and Colleen Moore's castle located in Chicago's Museum of Industry
and Art.
Dollhouses
have been a popular toy for several centuries, delighting children of
many ages, both girls and boys, in many countries. Before children were
ever allowed to play with dollhouses, these small-scale
homes were built for adults as decorative collector's
items. Antique dollhouses are often
on display in museums, but when they are for sale, wealthy collectors
will sometimes spend thousands of dollars to bring them home for upkeep
and display.
The first known dollhouse was built for a Bavarian Duke,
Albert V, in the 16th Century. It became common for wealthy citizens to
commission craftsmen to build dollhouses
and miniature furniture.
Because many people could not afford intricate dollhouses,
a "cupboard dollhouse" became popular. This
dollhouse looked like a regular piece of furniture, but
once it was opened, tiny rooms with furniture and miniature
dolls were featured on display.
With the advent of mass production, dollhouses
(often called "baby houses") became much more
popular among children in the mid-17th Century. They became common in
nurseries as toys and as tools to teach girls about domestic life.
In the early 20th Century, dollhouse makers
began constructing dollhouses "to scale."
The popular scale at the time was the 1-inch to 1-foot
scale. (A perfectly scaled dollhouse was built for Queen
Mary in the early 1920s.) In this way, the dollhouse displays
began to look more formal and like real miniature rooms.
Today, this is an important aspect for the dollhouse collector,
as there are several scales to be found.
In more recent years, dollhouses have become
extremely popular for children, especially young girls, and are probably
still instructional to some extent in the ways of the home. Small children
are often given plastic dollhouses that are hard to break,
but as they begin to mature, the gift of a lifelike dollhouse
can become a prized possession.
Adults are still avid collectors of dollhouses.
Some enthusiasts like to build one after another while
furnishing them with miniature people and seemingly shrunken
household items that have incredible detail. The satisfaction in building
and completing intricate, accurately detailed dollhouses
can be enormous, and the cost of materials is very fair.
Building dollhouses has become a popular
and affordable hobby for the masses, which is quite a
change from its humble beginnings, when it was only available to the privileged
few. Many of us enjoy collecting, in one sense or another,
and upon further inspection, may find a great deal of fascination in the
world of dollhouses as well.
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