Estimated at £2000-3000 but sold at £5000 in Hansons’ (25% buyer’s premium) auction in Derbyshire on July 22-23 was an early to mid-19th century pine cupboard converted to a dolls’ house. It went to one of two private UK phone bidders who made most of the running.
Measuring 3ft 7in (1.09m) high, key to its appeal was an array of accessories such as a hand-blown glass chandelier c.1900 and a Waltershausen c.1890 dressing table. Dolls’ house furniture with gold ornamentation is known as ‘Waltershausen’ after a small town in Thuringia where the factories which produced it were located.
Detail of cupboard adapted to a dolls’ house – £5000 at Hansons.
The cupboard came to auction from a private vendor in Staffordshire who built her collection across a number of sources including the Flora Gill Jacobs Auction held by Noel Barrett in Pennsylvania, 2014.
Jacobs, who died in 2006, wrote five reference works on the subject and the sale of contents from her Washington Dolls’ House & Toy Museum in 2004 was a landmark event. A catalogue for that sale was included in the Hansons lot.
