Kings, Queens and Princely Palaces Part 3
March 25th, 2009Welcome to the third part of our look into the most popular dolls’ house and miniatures eras. In this installment we will be looking at the Victorian Era, possibly the most popular of eras for dolls’ house enthusiasts as it provides us with so much ’stuff’ to put in our houses!
The glory of Victoriana is partly that you can still utilise items from the past eras, as mentioned before, good furniture wouldn’t be turned out just because it was old and the Victorians seemed to love a ‘well stuffed’ room with lots of fabrics, heavy furnishings and nic-nacs to decorate. With high arches, These very Gothic touches were reflected in the revival in Gothic architecture and the popularity in France, Germany and Great Britain saw all three nations claiming that ‘gothic’ style as their own.
One of the men responsible for recording the Gothic revival was Charles Locke Eastlake, in his book ‘A History of the Gothic Revival, but he was also influential in popularising the Arts and Crafts movement which was popular towards the end of the 19th century. Led by the likes of William Morris, the Arts and Crafts movement can be seen as a reaction to the industrialisation of the world, as it had strong tendencies towards hand made items. One of the best remaining examples of the movement can be found at Morris’s own home, Red House in Bexleyheath, now maintained for the public by the National Trust. Why not compare it with a trip to Houses of Parliament to see the work of Augustus Pugin?
We realise that we’ve only touched on the subject here, but we hope we’ve been able to give you some pointers in the right direction to get started if this is the era you choose for your dolls’ house.
In our final installment next week, we’ll be looking at the 20th century and how you can incorporate some of the more memorable decades into your dolls’ house.
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