The most famous and beautiful dolls' house in the world
Family Life
When Queen Mary's Dolls' House went on show in the Empire Exhibition, it made it possible for the public to better imagine how family life was led within a Royal Household. The top floor of the house has two bedrooms, four lobbies and six rooms, all of which are filled with memorabilia of childhood and family life. Also on the top floor is the housekeeper's bed-sitting room and the linen room.
The Queen's Sitting Room ©
The Day Nursery ©
Family life is nowhere more apparent than in the Day Nursery, which is brimming with English and Indian toys and even a jar of real barley sugar sticks. The walls are covered in chinoiserie murals of fairy tales by Edmund Dulac, one of the most prominent illustrators of the 1880s to the 1920s. Dulac also painted the chinoiserie-style silk walls of the Queen's Sitting Room, where items such as an unfinished embroidery and cabinets of a jade figure collection give sense of the queen's leisure pursuits.
In households with a nursery, a 'nanny' played a crucial role. It was usual for the baby to sleep with the nanny, and the Night Nursery in the dolls' house has a grand bed (indicative of the level of respect) for the nanny, as well as a cradle for baby.
Winsor & Newton [London]
Paintbox
British
Floral needlework
Sir Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944)
Bed
Allen & Hanburys, Ltd.
Bynotone
A Joubert
Cradle and linen
Japanese
Netsuke
John Broadwood & Sons
Miniature piano
Pascall
Jar of sweets
Gramophone Co. : Hayes, Middlesex
Gramophone
Wilkinson, W.
Theatre set
Pomona Toys
Merry-go-round
Bassett-Lowke
