A Small Collection of Roberson Miniatures

Though I don't generally collect modern miniatures, what dolls' house enthusiast could fail to appreciate the amazing talent of modern dolls' house miniature artisans altogether?

I guess that explains why I seem to have accumulated a small collection of the lovely items made by Colin and Yvonne Roberson of Roberson Miniatures.

Roberson sewing box and plant stand with Triang Knole Sofa

The Roberson faux-bamboo pieces in particular seem to blend in well amongst my vintage furnishings, as seen here in the bay window of a 1930s Triang Stockbroker. 

According to their website, Colin and Yvonne have been producing their handcrafted 1:12 scale miniatures since 1977. I understand that in more recent years, their son Tim has become involved in the business too. 

Roberson Miniatures Maker's Mark - CYR

Roberson pieces are easy to identify because they have a distinctive style, are made from metal rather than wood and also because they are signed with the initials 'CYR'.

I thought it might be nice to gather together the Roberson pieces I've bought over the years (all second-hand) and show them all together in a post, so here they are:

Faux-bamboo plant stands and pot plants by Roberson Miniatures

Roberson Miniature pot plants without their stands.

Faux-bamboo plant stand by Roberson Miniatures

Faux-bamboo plant trough by Roberson Miniatures

Faux-bamboo plant stand by Roberson Miniatures

Faux-bamboo umbrella stand and umbrellas by Roberson Miniatures

Faux-bamboo sewing box by Roberson Miniatures

Padded silk lining inside Roberson sewing box

This little sewing box is my favourite piece - I love the surprise of the rich golden silk lining when it's opened.

Period baby carriage by Roberson Miniatures

Three-wheel period pushchair/baby carriage by Roberson Miniatures

Padded leather upholstery.

The two baby vehicles (I'm not sure what the correct term for each of them is!) are my latest acquisitions and the black three-wheeler is a particular favourite.

Until next time,

Zoe

[All photos copyright Zoe Handy.]

“Teapot Mark” Vases

After finishing my last post about the two little Gabriel Fourmaintraux vases, I suddenly remembered two more tiny vases I acquired sometime last year.

I suspected that they were French, possibly from Limoges and, since they were gorgeous and fairly inexpensive, I bought them.

At the time I couldn’t identify the maker’s marks on the bases but I’ve just been re-reading the section on miniature ceramics in Liza Antrim’s ‘Family Dolls’ Houses of the 18th and 19th Centuries’* and I had another lightbulb moment when she mentioned a factory which used a “teapot mark”.

It’s suddenly clear that the marks on my vases are tiny teapots!

This is what Liza’s book says about them:

Many china articles were made in France and Germany for the dolls’ house in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and they are much more suitably sized for the twelfth scale of the more modern house. A factory which used a teapot mark produced the nicest pieces, ranging from cabaret and custard sets, to little boxes, ink wells and vases. They are certainly French (many still bear French retailers’ labels) and they are beautifully decorated, some imitating 18th century pieces in the Sevres style, some with ‘fancy’ birds or flowers, others more contemporary or Oriental.”

Hoorah! Nothing makes me happier than discovering these little snippets about pieces in my collection! 

Here are the vases where they live, in the rather bling and blousey dining room of Southsea Villa. 

Until next time,
Zoe

* If you don’t already own a copy of this Liza’s wonderful book, you really are missing a treat! It, and her equally delicious second volume, ‘Family & Friends’ Dolls’ Houses of the 17th, 18th & 19th Centuries’, can be bought via Liza’s Cider House Books website.

Gabriel Fourmaintraux Miniatures

I’m in such a blogging mood at the moment and today, I’ve got Gabriel Fourmaintraux on my mind!

That’s because I took delivery of these two sweet little vases which originated from his factory in Desvres - the coin is 2.3 cm (13/16”) tall, so the vases are the perfect size for a 1:16th scale dolls’ house.

Until I bough these, I was only aware of Gabriel Formaintraux from having seen a handful of his miniatures for sale on eBay at eye-watering prices.

However, the decoration on these vases is not typical of the Gabriel Formaintraux miniatures I’d seen previously, so when I saw them online for sale very cheaply, I certainly didn’t make the connection immediately.

But I did like them very much, so I browsed the seller’s photos and that’s when I saw the ‘GF’ maker’s mark on the bases and a lightbulb went on. A quick Google of the mark confirmed that my thinking was correct and my purchase was excitedly made!

I’ve put them on the mantelpiece in the dining room of my G & J Lines No. 17, where I think they look lovely.

Of course, the purchase made me want to know more about the maker, so I did some more Googling and I found a fascinating site, on the history of faïence (decorated tin-glazed earthenware) in Desvres by a lady whose grandfather worked in the Gabriel Fourmaintraux factory all his working life. He started as an apprentice in the factory in 1916, when he was just 13 years old and went on to become a talented ceramic artist there.

There are some great photos of the lady’s own collection of these miniatures on this page of her site. I was most interested to learn that these lovely little miniatures, often measuring less than a centimetre, were produced specifically for apprentices to train on, honing their decorative painting skills until they were ready to move on to the factory’s full-size pieces.

Finally, a few snippets, the first from Wikipedia:

The Fourmaintraux family’s ceramics business can trace its origins to when in 1804, François-Joseph Fourmaintraux, a former worker at Sta, founded his own factory.

And a few more from this site:

"Gabriel Fourmaintraux. Born 27 May 1886 in Desvres in the Pas de Calais region of Northern France to a family with a long history in the ceramics industry, Gabriel Fourmaintraux studied ceramics and began work in 1905 at the family factory, taking over the running of it in 1930. Production was extremely varied and ranged from lamps and utility items to advertising, trophies and tiles. Fourmaintreaux collaborated with Fernand Léger, a painter and potter who worked in Biot in the South of France. The association encouraged Fourmaintreaux to work in primary colours - reds, white, yellows on a black or white ground. It also encouraged him to produce items in various original shapes. Most of his work was made using moulds, his potted items being rare. The business finally closed in 1997."

INSERTED OCTOBER 2021: Since posting this blog, I've been lucky enough to find this lovely little Gabriel Fourmaintraux vase. It’s bigger than the vases shown above, but is still small enough to look good in a 1:12th scale dolls’ house. The maker’s mark on the base is shown below.

And to finish off, a couple of maker’s marks from full-sized pieces of Gabriel Fourmaintraux.

 

Until next time,
Zoe

Tiny Treen

This is a short post about an amazing piece of treen that I just bought to grace a shelf in the schoolroom in one of my dolls' houses.

This tiny cylindrical box is only 1.7 cm tall, with a diameter of 1.8 cm (or 5/8" tall with a diameter of 11/16").

But it's not just one box, it opens up and nestling inside is another, even smaller box!

And in fact, it's a set of six nestling boxes with the smallest being smaller than a grain of rice!

Each of the tiny lids is colourfully painted with concentric circles.

I bought the little box from eBay and, though I knew it was tiny, I really didn't appreciated just how tiny it was until it arrived. 

I love it and I also love the fact that it is now now sitting on a shelf just waiting to surprise and delight the next person to look inside it, just as it did me!

Until next time,

Zoe

[A Little Bit About Treen: Also referred to as 'treenware', treen literally means "made of a tree" and is referred to as 'woodenware' in the US. Treen items are usually small (i.e. the term doesn't generally include pieces of wooden furniture), made from one piece of wood and handmade, though some would have been carved/turned using a foot-pedal lathe. Close-grained native hardwoods such as box, beech and sycamore were particularly favoured to make treen pieces and the wonderful rich patina you see on the items is a result of the fine grain of the wood and its age - treen was apparently made between medieval times and the late 19th century.]

Vintage Schoolroom Set - Possibly German

Some time ago now, I bought a little set of dolls' house schoolroom furniture as I felt my young Grecons needed to have access to education:

The idea was that I would build a schoolroom for it to go into, but of course I haven't gotten around to that part yet.🙄

I don't know anything about the set, but after seeing a blog post by the very knowledgeable German collector diePuppenstubensammlerin about some vintage German schoolrooms here, I'm wondering if it could be German too, though later in date than those featured in the article.

The set is clearly meant for slightly larger dolls than Grecons as the top of teacher's desk is about level with her eyes, luckily however, Grecons have never been particularly intimidated by size and are happy to clamber around on and peep over the top of most furniture scales.

I'm no expert on dolls' house schools, German or otherwise, but if I had to guess as to the age of the set, I'd say 1970s/1980s, which is why the teacher I’ve installed is of that era - she was an obvious candidate since, to my mind at least, her checked trousers, short-sleeved pullover and matching red-templed spectacles are very ‘teachery’.

She certainly has good classroom control as her young students all seem very attentive and, as all good Grecon collectors will know, Grecons do tend to be unruly by nature so that's no mean feat!

If anyone reading this does happen to have any information about the country of origin/maker/age of this set, I'd love to hear from you. I'm just making a stab in the dark about it being German and 70s/80s and it really wouldn't be surprise me all that much to hear that it's ELC from the last decade, but I'd love to know either way! 🙂

Until next time,

Zoe

Progress Update on Southsea Villa - Inside

My last post was about the restoration of the outside of my C.E. Turnbull house so this post about the inside.

[You can also see the post I made when I bought the house as a restoration project back in June 2017 here and the progress report I made six months later here.]

So here is the [just about] finished interior. 

I have to say that, having put my heart and soul into decorating and furnishing this, I absolutely love it!

A very useful tips I was given regarding decorating a dolls' house is to constantly keep in mind the view of the whole of the interior which will be seen when the house is opened up, rather than concentrating solely on individual rooms.

Great advice, but frustratingly I find it's not quite as easy to follow as it perhaps sounds and often a paper or a floor covering looks like it will be just right, but once in place, it really isn't! So there was a lot of chopping and changing in this house before I was happy with the overall 'picture' I'd created - the top right room got its third and [thankfully] final papering less that two weeks ago!

 

Here is a little reminder of the blank canvas it was when I bought it.

Given that there was literally nothing except the original stairs and doors in the house, I think the interior work would probably be better termed 'refurbishment' than 'restoration'!

Of course the best bit of all is furnishing a dolls' house and this one has certainly filled up over the last few years.

A rustic but homely look developed in the kitchen and I've thoroughly enjoyed gathering together all the little accessories which seem to have taken on a bit of a pewter and bisque theme!

As the dining room has filled up, it's become ever more blousy and bling - the flash does actually make the room look much more bling than it does in natural light, but it's never going to be a room you'd hang around in if you felt a headache coming on!

What the occupants really need is a nice big display cabinet for their growing collection of glassware.

To my mind, this gentleman's study/smoking room really improved when I found the right wallpaper border. I used a strip of a plain white anaglypta for the border itself and the blue and red lines around the bottom of it were cut from a length of striped wallpaper. 

The parlour has acquired a new rug (the latest of many I've trialed in here over the past couple of years), some nice old lithographed furniture and some gilded accessories.

It took me ages to find a wallpaper I was happy with for the bedroom and eventually found this vintage one in Belarus!

This was the most difficult room of all. Having papered all the other rooms, I just couldn't find a paper that looked good with all the others. Thankfully, just a couple of weeks ago, I found this vintage paper in Germany and I'm finally happy.

Oddly, without the decor decided upon, I was finding it impossible to settle on a theme for this room, however, as soon the decorating was done, the furnishings started to come together and it's now well on its way to being a room for serious study - maybe the children of the house will be tutored in here.

The hallway, first floor and second floor landings.

I've made a few repairs to the stair banisters and balustrades and added a narrower border to the wallpaper on the second floor where the ceiling hight is much lower than on the floors below it.

Apart from the elusive 'perfect' paper for the top right room, the last part of the house to be decorated was the opening front.

The gorgeous old wallpaper I used there had been reclaimed and was in many pieces which had to be patched back together - well worth the effort though as I think they look just right.

I used lengths of antique lace as curtains for the smaller windows and gold Dresden paper trim as valances in the absence of anything more suitable, though I might actually leave them as I like they effect (again, the camera flash makes them look a lot more shiny than they actually are!)

I made the curtains for the bay windows from some very fine antique silk trimmed with old lace. A lovely old lace collar was used for the nets.  Fancy antique-look upholstery tacks came in useful to pin some lovely old trim in place as valances and curtain tie-backs.

Only this week, I boxed in the lower part of the bays and installed wooden window sills. Now I'm on a quest to find just the right ornament to place in each window.

I've left the window sills in the bays loose so that there is a little storage area under each one and I've placed the little plastic nameplate that was affixed to the house when it came to me in one of them so it will, hopefully, be kept with the house going forward.

I also plan to add a page of notes detailing the few bits of information I've gleaned about the house and outlining the work I've done to it.

Until next time,

Zoe