Christmas Dollhouse Diorama. Living room/parlor with Christmas decorations. 

Condition: Commensurate with age. 

Size: 14 1/2 x 11 x 12 1/4 in.

#3422 #20 . 

A dollhouse (or doll’s house) is a toy house made in miniature. Miniature homes, furnished with domestic articles and resident inhabitants, both people and animals, have been made for thousands of years, with surviving examples created for religious purposes found in the Egyptian tombs of the Old Kingdom from 5000 years ago. The earliest known European dollhouses were the “baby house” display cases of the 16th Century, which showed idealized interiors complete with detailed furnishings and accessories, and were not considered toys but rather used to teach young women how to run a household. The cabinets were built by hand with meticulous architectural designs, each one unique with custom details, and were often owned by the wealthy elite living in the cities of the Netherlands, England, and Germany who could afford them. Smaller dollhouses with more realistic exteriors appeared in Europe in the early 18th Century, and following the Industrial Revolution they were increasingly mass-produced and became more standardized. Early German companies noted for their dollhouses included Christian Hacker and Moritz Gottschalk, with English companies springing up soon after to compete, including Silber & Fleming and Lines Brothers. By the end of the 19th Century dollhouses were being made in the United States by The Bliss Manufacturing Company, and France caught up to the craze in the first quarter of the 20th Century with opulent Deauville dollhouses made by Villard & Weill. In the United States most dollhouses have an open back and a fancy facade, while British and other European houses are more likely to have a hinged front that opens to reveal the rooms. Germany produced the most prized dollhouses and miniatures up until World War I, with the majority built in Nuremberg, which had earned the nickname “Toy City.” With civil and political unrest ripping through Europe at the turn of the 20th Century, American companies began to dominate the industry, especially The TynieToy Company, Tootsietoy, and Schoenhut. Since the early 20th Century dollhouses have primarily been made as playthings for children, but their collection and crafting had also become a hobby for many adults since the late 18th Century, as well as collecting contemporary, vintage, or antique dolls to put in the houses in both incongruous and themed sets. Contemporary children’s play dollhouses are mostly on a 1:18 scale (first standardized by the popularity of the houses for Mattel’s Barbie and Ken), while a 1:12 scale is common for dollhouses made for adult collectors. By the 1950s the typical dollhouse sold commercially was made of painted sheet metal filled with plastic furniture, with such a low cost that most young girls from developed western countries which were not struggling with rebuilding after World War II could own one. Contemporary kit and fully built houses are typically made of plywood or medium-density fiberboard, held together by a system of tabs and slots (plus glue). These houses are usually light-weight and lower cost but often require siding, shingles, or other exterior treatments to look realistic. Nowadays dollhouses can range from simple boxes stacked together used as rooms for play to multi-million dollar structures displayed in museums, and there are several print publications for enthusiasts, as well as museums devoted solely to dollhouses around the world.

Commensurate with age.