Dolls in Dolls Houses
Should Your Miniature Dollhouse Include Dolls?
Should your miniature dollhouse include dolls? It may seem like a strange question to ask, but in the world of dollhouse miniatures, it's a valid one.
One school of thought holds that adding human figures to an accurately scaled miniature dolls house detracts from the detail of the scene because, whatever else is there, the human eye always goes immediately to the doll.
A famous example of this approach is Queen Mary's Dolls House at Windsor Castle, England, which has 40 rooms filled with 1:12 scale wonders of the miniature world and no tiny people to enjoy them.
Others feel that appropriately costumed doll figures help to establish the period of a room, add personality, and help to tell the scene's story.
Many of the best-known early dolls houses and Dutch cabinets from Germany, Holland and Great Britain contain elaborate doll figures in period costume. Petronella de la Court and Sara van Amstel's Dutch cabinets, from the 17th and 18th centuries, Germany's 17th century Kress House and 18th century 80-room Mon Plaisir, and England's late 17th and early 18th century Ann Sharp House (made for the god-daughter of Queen Anne and one of the earliest known English dolls houses), are all examples.
Most of the dolls houses of these periods weren't intended for children, but were the avocation of wealthy women. In fact Princess Augusta Dorothea of Schwartzburg-Gotha sank deep into debt creating the complete German town that is Mon Plaisir. Ann Sharp's house was one of the exceptions. It was made with simpler materials and furnishings, better suited to child's play.
While the creation of miniature dolls houses has been around for centuries, it was the creation of three notable projects which began after World War I, that set a standard for modern dollhouse miniatures, and none of these three contained any dolls.
Instead Queen Mary's Dolls House, The Thorne Rooms, and Colleen Moore's Fairy Castle all focused on the display of exquisite craftsmanship, decoration and detail. Queen Mary's Dolls House, and the Thorne Rooms, in fact were intended more as architecture, artisan, and art displays than as figural settings.
Even without figures, approaches to miniature dolls houses and scenes vary. Some miniaturists prefer to create showpiece rooms that may look like they've emerged from a designer house. While, others may create rooms and scenes that imply life is being lived, with baking in progress, plants being repotted, or a game half-played. As if the occupants were called away momentarily and are due back at any minute. Some miniature enthusiasts eschew dolls, but include birds, fish, cats, dogs or other animals.
That doesn't mean that miniature dolls houses and room boxes complete with dolls aren't still popular. A large contemporary collection of examples is in the Eberhard Room at Historic Trinity Lutheran Church in Detroit, Michigan. These dollhouses and room boxes date from the mid 1980s, when The Rev. Dr. David Eberhard began building them.
If you want to add figures to your miniature dolls house, you can purchase them, or try making your own. An excellent resource for do-it-yourself miniature dolls is "Making Miniature Dolls with Polymer Clay: How to Create and Dress Period Dolls in 1/12 Scale," by Sue Heaser (Cassell & Co.). This book will take you from the basics of working with polymer clay (also known as Fimo), to realistic hair styling and costuming for 1 inch scale miniature dolls house dolls.
