The Queen's Dolls' House Postcards

Shown above is the envelope from Set I, Series No. 4500 of The Queen's Dolls' House postcards. This series is one of six series of eight Queen's Dolls' House postcards made by Raphael Tuck & Sons. The envelope lists the cards in this set.

The following information is from Wikipedia:

Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a doll's house built in the early 1920s, completed in 1924, for Queen Mary, the wife of King George V.

The idea for building it 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 dolls' house 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 dolls' house has an amazing collection of miniature items that actually work. It even has running water through its tiny pipes. It was created as a gift to Queen Mary from the people, and to serve as an historical document on how a royal family might have lived during that period in England.

It showcased the very finest and most modern goods of the period. Later the dolls' house was put on display to raise funds for the Queen's charities. It was originally exhibited at the British Empire Exhibition, 1924–1925, 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 one 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 1/12 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. The bathrooms are fully plumbed; that includes a flushable toilet and miniature lavatory paper.

Below are scans of four of the postcards in this series showing the Garden Entrance and Dining Room. The text below each image is from the back of that postcard.

An excellent website for exploring the dollhouse is The Royal Collection: Queen Mary's Dolls' House. Other Tuck postcards of the Queen's Dolls' House are shown in the Tuck Postcards Database here. This view of the kitchen from the database is the closest to the Sepia Saturday 125 picture:

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