Online Miniatures Shop

ITEM: 12th Scale Cobbler's Bench

This incredibly detailed piece would make a fabulous centrepiece to a shop or doirama. It comes complete with all the accessories shown-part complete boot,wooden box of leather pieces,glass glue pot and bristle brush,hammer,etc..and hanging from a chain the most perfect pair of functioning scissors.The height of this item is-4 1/2",width 2 3/4",length 4 1/2".

Price £110 - plus postage (UK-£3.40) (Worldwide £8.00)

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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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