CasaBijoux: 2012

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

You can now buy CasaBijoux Miniatures in our two online stores:

CasaBijoux Miniatures on Ebay

Buy CasaBijoux Miniatures in our Etsy store - including download kits for our little folding houses

Friday, April 27, 2012

Heritage Houses - 221b Baker Street & Downing Street

Introducing CasaBijoux's new Heritage Houses...

Currently for sale on eBay

Let me see this miniature on eBay

Currently for sale on eBay

Saturday, April 07, 2012

Ysabel Birkbeck’s Westacre Dolls’ House Furniture

“Go on, til you can’t do anymore.

Then do another hundred bucket fulls.”

Ysabel Birkbeck

The young Ysabel Birkbeck
picture by kind permission of Philip Taylor

Indulge yourself in a flight of fancy...

Westacre - Private Collection - Castlefrank
©Jill Shapiro

No true lover of dolls’ house miniatures can be averse to a flight of fancy every now and then, so indulge yourself, and us, and imagine if you will that you are a child in London, in those less than cheery times between the two world wars. Now press your nose up against the window of Morrell’s toyshop in the Burlington Arcade, London. See there, alongside the Britain's lead soldiers for boys and the pretty AM Dream Baby dolls for girls an array of exquisite Westacre dolls’ house furniture…

Westacre furniture, so called after the Westacre Village Industry company that produced it, was all handcrafted, so naturally here at CasaBijoux we're particularly enamoured of it.

West Acre - sign on the village green
©uksignpix

1" tall original miniature watercolour of
High House by a CasaBijoux artist
Private Collection

©CasaBijoux

‘Westacre’ was the brainchild of Mrs Ysabel Birkbeck, a woman who might be described as ‘a character’, and a formidable one, at that. Westacre Village Industry’s registered address was Westacre High House, Castleacre, Kings Lynn in Norfolk, and a grand one it is too - the property neighbours the Queen’s Norfolk residence, Sandringham.

Ysabel Birkbeck’s Westacre Village Industry produced a wide range of miniature pieces, all artfully constructed, using meticulous plans and measurements of her own design. Where upholstery was required, small Liberty print lawn cottons were used.

Liberty print fabrics

Baroque cabinet with chinoiserie- a style
that would have inspired Ysabel Birkbeck
Walters Art Museum

In a time before the term ‘up-cycling’ was common parlance Westacre was made from materials that were readily to hand in everyday life: card, paper, beads, wire and string. Most of the miniatures reflected furniture styles from times that were bygone even then, with perhaps the exception of the bucket shaped faux canework chairs which have a distinctly 1920s feel. Conjecture would have it that Mrs Birkbeck based some of her miniature designs on actual pieces of furniture that were in situ at High House.

Granny Birkbeck had snow white hair...

Ysabel was fondly regarded by the local children who were enrolled to make some of the Westacre furniture. The young crafters were paid for every completed piece and, clearly happy with this recompense and enjoying their creative pursuits, they tenderly called Ysabel ‘Granny Birkbeck’. In a short film by composer Philip Taylor the narrator, Philip’s wife, the playright Marsali Taylor, gives this description of Ysabel Birkbeck: “She had snow white hair that stood out in a halo around her head.”

Ysabel Birkbeck
picture by kind permission of Philip Taylor

In keeping with the ideals of the time, and the conventional gender roles still prevalent, it was the boys who were put to work constructing the dolls’ house furniture that is now highly collectible, while the girls were given the task of upholstering and making miniature books, they were paid tuppence for every batch of a dozen of these minute volumes.

Makers of the furniture need only make a small personal investment to be part of the industrious little business, buying the Liberty fabrics and the beads which were used on the handles and as embellishments on the furniture. There was too, the milliners’ wire, which formed the basis of the armatured legs of the little chairs, which cost fourpence a roll. Card and paper was provided to workers at no charge.

4d for hat wire, 2d for a finished piece...

4d for hat wire, 2d for a finished piece

She was anything but a lady of leisure...

Westacre Village Industry was far from a whimsical or hobbyist pursuit set up to amuse a lady of leisure. Ysabel Birkbeck founded the company as a means to offer much needed employment to local people, not just the village children, during the Depression and she was anything but a lady of leisure, despite hailing from a privileged background with links to the peerage. She was the 4th daughter of Robert Elwes, Esq., of Congham House, during the 1st World war (which claimed the life of her son in 1917) she did her bit for King and country as an ambulance driver in Russia. In her fifties at the time, she detailed the experience in her diaries and told how transporting the wounded impacted on her: "It was for them the horror, and I to lessen it as far as possible and so I drove them back and the memory of it will be there always til I die." Mrs Birkbeck's determined nature is further confirmed by the story of her manually rolling and heaving heavy loads of boulders in order to build a landing plate for her clinker dinghy. “Go on, til you can’t do anymore," she told her young assistant, "then do another hundred bucket fulls.” Ysabel's written diary accounts are accompanied by exquisite and moving illustrations in her remarkably fine hand.

"It was for them the horror, and I to lessen it as far as possible and so I drove them back and the memory of it will be there always til I die."

Details from WWI diary illustrations by Ysabel Birkbeck
images by kind permission of Philip Taylor

The ladies who gilded the lilies...

It was to this fine artist’s hand of hers that Ysabel Birkbeck turned when it came to the matter of decorating the minute Westacre pieces with their distinctive gold chinoiserie. She was assisted by the Cross sisters, Minnie Cross being the headmistress of the school in the village, the latter was appointed Westacre’s head ‘caneworker’, creating the Bergere-like appearance on the diminutive chairs and sofas using pillow lace stiffened with starch and possibly varnish. The vicar’s wife, Mrs Titley, also took up her brush to gild Westacre’s lilies. Ysabel Birkbeck’s work was notoriously fine and the pieces of Westacre that exist today featuring what might be called superior detailing are attributed to her.

Superior detailing on a Westacre piece
attributed to Ysabel Birkbeck herself
Private Collection - Castlefrank
©Jill Shapiro

Beautiful but ferocious dragon on a Westacre occasional table
Private Collection - Castlefrank
©Jill Shapiro

Stiffened pillow lace was used to create canework
Private Collection - Castlefrank
©Jill Shapiro

Ysabel Birkbeck died in 1934, her Westacre furniture increasingly continues to enjoy popularity and inspire fondness in the hearts of collectors and enthusiasts today. In homage to this fascinating lady and her beautiful miniatures CasaBijoux has revisited Westacre style furniture and launched its own range of replications, known as Burlington. Crafted by hand in the same way the original Westacre was and to the same exacting designs, using similar materials, our artists consider their creations a very warm nod in the brilliant Mrs Birkbeck's direction.

A tough act to follow - Westacre meets CasaBijoux's Burlington Furniture...

Left: Original Westacre. Right: CasaBijoux's Burlington replica
Westacre from the private collection - Castlefrank
©Jill Shapiro & ©CasaBijoux

Note: CasaBijoux's handcrafted Burlington furniture is openly produced as modern-made Westacre style miniatures. The pieces are clearly labelled on the back so as to distinguish them in a stand alone situation from the originals on which they are based.

For enquiries and commissions contact us here - casabijouxminiatures@gmail.com

Ysabel's War - a short film about Mrs Birkbeck by Philip Taylor

See Burlington furniture and other CasaBijoux Miniatures on Ebay

This is the only Ebay account currently selling genuine CasaBijoux items

* Please feel free to link to images and content on this site using the appropriate acknowledgements. It must be pointed out that the original hand-painted artwork on the façades of our houses and other miniatures is copyright protected and is the intellectual property of the artist/s. It is not permissible to copy or reproduce our original artwork for commercial purposes. © CasaBijoux 2012

Acknowledgements:

With thanks to Philip and Marsali Taylor for permissions for image use and quotes.

Reference works: Family Dolls' Houses of the 18th & 19th Centuries - Liza Antrim - Cider House Books

©Uksignpix (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Walters Art Museum [Public domain, CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Thursday, April 05, 2012

No: 93 Triang 'Stockbroker Dolls' House in Miniature - Less than 6 cm tall!

All hand-painted, as always, our latest Triang in miniature - the No: 93 Stockbroker Dolls' House.

NOW BEING MADE TO ORDER

Note: Our limited production run of Stockbrokers has come to an end for the time being as we have other projects on the workbench at the moment. We do intend to revisit the Stockbroker in the future, so if you have enquired about them, we'll keep you informed. And we'll post on the blog here to keep our Stockbroker news up to date:

Mimi CasaBijoux

6 cm tall to the top of the chimney stacks!
SOLD

SOLD

For enquiries and commissions contact us here - casabijouxminiatures@gmail.com

See other CasaBijoux Miniatures on Ebay

This is the only Ebay account currently selling genuine CasaBijoux items

* Please feel free to link to images and content on this site - however, it must be pointed out that the original hand-painted artwork on the façades of our houses is copyright protected and is the intellectual property of the artist/s. It is not permissible to copy or reproduce our original artwork for commercial purposes. © CasaBijoux 2012

Sunday, March 25, 2012

Alice Villa - Curiouser and Curiouser!

"Alice! a childish story take,

And with a gentle hand,

Lay it where childhood's dreams are twined,

In memory's mystic band."

Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass

Alice Villa (left) the little Edwardian dolls' house which was once part of Jill Shapiro's well-documented private collection in England now finds itself a new and suitably sensitive and appreciative owner in the US.

CasaBijoux made miniatures of many of Jill's houses over the years, with Alice Villa replicas proving very popular. The actual house has been much admired since its appearance in International Dolls' House News in 2002, so much so that one enthusiast crafted her own version based on Nick Forder's wonderful photographs.

With just two rooms (a classic one-up, one-down situation) Alice Villa has a charm all its own and our 2 ¾ inch tall miniatures of the house are designed to evoke the very loved and much played with essence of the original.

Curiouser and curiouser - 2 handpainted miniature CasaBijoux Alice Villas

For enquiries and commissions contact us here - casabijouxminiatures@gmail.com

See other CasaBijoux Miniatures on Ebay

This is the only Ebay account currently selling genuine CasaBijoux items

* Nick Forder (IDHN) images are copyright protected and are the intellectual property of the copyright holder. It is not permissible to copy or reproduce our original artwork for commercial purposes.

Mini Triangs! The Gosh of Small Things

"It's a small world,

but I wouldn't want to paint it."

Steven Wright - US Comedian and Actor

Miniature Triang style houses in the leafy suburbs of production -
some have yet to be adorned with chimney pots

Triang dolls' houses are viewed fondly by collectors and those with happy memories from childhood.With their unmistakable bright red roofs and homely charm, these houses are very much the nation's favourites.

CasaBijoux's miniature Triang style dolls' houses, which measure approximately 6 cms tall, pay homage to the much loved brand although the versions shown here in the pictures are not replicas of a particular house, more a little delight made in the spirit of Triang.

We do have plans to recreate, in miniature, some of Triang's original designs: requests for the Stockbroker are regular and also the diminutive Number 24 with those wonderful grass green shutters proves popular. But these things take time. Each house is hand-crafted and each one is individually hand-painted. Some of the larger houses, like the formidable Stockbroker, are many many weeks in production.

*Update - Here it is! See below.