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The History Of Dolls Houses
Dolls houses have not always been intended to be for the entertainment of children. The very earliest models of home accessories and cooking utensils were funerary offerings to aid the dearly departed when they reached the next world. The earliest recording of a dolls house was an order placed by Duke Albrecht of Bavaria in the 1560’s. He required a miniature replica of the house of a German prince and he wanted it to display miniature copies of his possessions and lifestyle. When he was done with it, instead of passing it on to his daughter he gave it to a museum!
Dolls houses continued to be produced throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In those days they were called “baby houses.” “Baby” was the word for “doll” then and did not refer to the actual house being a baby version of a full sized dwelling. The more basic and simple baby houses were for children to play with but the purpose of their larger, grander counterparts was two fold:- 
- To display the wealth and good taste of their owners
- To help the young daughters in the family to learn about household management
The earliest baby houses are German. They are simple representations of full sized houses. The interiors were divided into rooms and some had a staircase. Typical rooms included a Great Hall, dining room, bedroom, kitchen, reception room. Grander versions might have had stables, wine rooms, store rooms, nursery, servants quarters, laundry and shop.
During the eighteenth century, the baby house developed into a dolls house contained in a cupboard, revealed by opening doors hinged to the front of the cupboard. These were popular in both England and Holland and were called cabinet houses. Again, small simple examples might be played with by the children of the house but the larger, grander, heavier versions were built by firms of architects, anxious to display their own talents and the opulent tastes of their clients. This fashion continued in Holland through the eighteenth century. A fine example can still be seen in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. This cabinet has floors on three levels. On the ground floor is a fine garden room, music room, porcelain room and art collection room. There is also a “lying room” designed for the married woman of the time who spent much of her life having children, not all of whom would survive.
By the nineteenth century the fashion for baby houses was declining to be replaced by the mass produced dolls houses of the Industrial Revolution. In Germany and France the trend was chiefly concerned with room box shops. As miniatures began to be exported globally it soon became possible to buy everything that would be needed to furnish a mansion. Glass, china, food stuffs and all kinds of furniture became more readily available to the pocket money purses.
 By the late Victorian era, dolls houses were lit with electric lighting and water could be piped from the attic to the bathroom and even down to the scullery. By now dolls houses were a truly international phenomenon, produced everywhere from the US to France to Scandinavia. They all tended to mirror domestic life of the times.
By the twentieth century dolls houses were quite commonplace. In England the Limes Brothers produced their Triang dolls houses. They were furnished using “Tootsie Toy,” and “Pit-A-Pat” brands.
Nowadays Sylvanian Family houses and their contents can be found in many bedrooms up and down the country. Their contribution to the dolls house saga is not to hold a mirror up to contemporary domestic life but rather to offer a charming and imaginative escapism
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