Queen Mary's Dolls' House

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Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a magnificent dollhouse built in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V of the United Kingdom. The idea for building the dollhouse originally came from the queen's cousin, Princess Marie Louise, who discussed her idea with one of the top architects of the time, Sir Edwin Lutyens at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1921. Sir Edwin agreed to construct the dollhouse and began preparations. Princess Marie Louise had many connections in the arts and arranged for the top artists and craftsmen of the time to contribute their special abilities to the house. As a result, the dollhouse has an amazing collection of miniature items that actually work. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as an historical document on how a royal family might live during that period in England. It showcased the very finest and most modern goods of the period. Later the dollhouse was put on display to raise funds for the queen's charities. It was originally exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924/5, and is now on display in Windsor Castle, at Windsor, Berkshire, England as a tourist attraction, especially to people with an interest in miniature houses and furniture.

It was made to a scale of 1:12 (one inch to the foot), is over three feet tall, and contains models of products of well known companies of the time. It is remarkable for its detail and the detail of the objects within it, many of which are 1/12th replicas of items in Windsor Castle. These were either made by the companies themselves, or by specialist modelmakers, such as Twining Models of Northampton, England. The carpets, curtains and furnishings are all copies of the real thing, and even the light fittings are working. There is for example a flushable toilet, complete right down to the lavatory paper. In addition, well known writers such as Rudyard Kipling wrote special books which were written and bound in scale size, and painters provided miniature pictures. Even the bottles in the wine cellar were filled with the appropriate wines and spirits, and the wheels of motor vehicles are properly spoked.[1]

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