In the Beginning
Miniature homes, furnished with domestic articles and resident inhabitants (both people and animals), have been made for thousands of years. The earliest known examples were found in the Egyptian Tombs of the Old Kingdom, created nearly five thousand years ago.
Dollhouses as We know them
Today's doll's house traces its history directly back about four hundred years to the "baby houses" of Europe. The baby houses were were solely the playthings of adults.
Early European Dollhouses
The early European dollhouses were each unique, constructed on a custom basis by individual craftsmen. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, factories began mass producing toys, including dollhouses and miniatures suitable for furnishing them. By the end of the Nineteenth Century American dollhouses were being made in the United States.
Dollhouses in America
The TynieToy Company of Providence, Rhode Island, made authentic replicas of American antique houses and furniture in a uniform scale beginning in about 1917.
Exceptional Examples
Petronella Oortman - 1686 -1705 Dutch - The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam estimates that P. Oortman spent twenty to thirty thousand guilders on her “model house”, the price of a real house along one of Amsterdam’s canals at that time. This doll’s house shows the linen room (laundry room), kitchen, and bedrooms in great detail – which serve to illustrate the workings of the household of that era.
This expensive doll house was not for children to play with - it was the hobby of the lady of the house, and she would give a tour of it when women guests visited.
The dimensions are 10.2 feet tall, 7.58 feet wide, and 3.1 feet deep.
The Tate House
English - The Tate House (1760), on Exhibit in The Museum of Childhood in London.
www.vam.ac.uk/.../tatebaby/index.html
One of a group of very fine 18th century dolls' or 'baby' (meaning small) houses, this is said to have been modelled on an 18th century Dorset house, where it was made. It last belonged to Mrs Walter Tate. The Museum bought the house after her death in accordance with her wishes.
Information for this page was taken from Wikipedia and can be found by following this link:
Elizabeth Oortman's Dollhouse 1876
