Things are Really Moving!

A long-delayed, but fruitful update. In the last while, I’ve honed my thesis topic—which was once quite broad and abstract—to now focus on two dollhouses of the 1920s, the Carrie Stettheimer Dollhouse and Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. They’re two completely different houses: the former is personal, private, handmade, and completely of New York City, while the latter is intended for public viewing, extremely professional (more than 1500 people and companies participated), and British. The two houses express different elements of the dollhouse, and each one beautifully captures its exact circumstances. So this is exciting!

I’ve just come back from Amsterdam, where I saw Petronella Oortmans’s late-17th century dollhouse at the Rijksmuseum. It’s one of the oldest and most famous bespoke dollhouses, and it was great to see it after writing quite a bit about it in my history-focused thesis chapter.

In news about my own dollhouse, I’m working with designer/fabricator Hannah Biegeleisen, who’s been fantastic: she understands the spirit of it, is super knowledgeable, and keeps me focused on my own project instead of letting me get distracted by (or panicked about) other fantastic work I see. Right now she’s in the process of building and electrifying the house, so the exciting part is beginning!

Because I’m writing about dollhouses of the ‘20s, I want my own dollhouse’s design sensibility to reach through about 1930. For inspiration, I’ve been looking at pictures of interiors from the period, finding period-appropriate furniture on 1stDibs and museum inventories, and using resources like JSTOR.