When I started looking into dollhouses for this project, I thought it would be interesting to portray one of the earliest surviving ones, and I picked out this wonderful one from 1673, from Nuremberg. However, I was reminded after some basic reading that early ‘dollhouses’ were not really that at all – they were really scale models of homes made by wealthy adults to show off to other adults, rather than to use and play with.

I thought it would be more fitting to the project to try and find a dollhouse that I knew for a fact had been used for playing, one that ideally exuded plenty of character. This house fit the bill perfectly: it was made for a girl in London by her father during WW2, in 1942-43. The girl’s name clinched the deal for me – Rita Flower.

The house is part of the V&A Museum of Childhood’s collection, though it is not on display. It comes with a selection of furniture and objects, all of which provide a snapshot of the period, condensed in miniature format, lived-in and scuffed with wear.

When Rita first looked at that furniture, she must have delighted in its newness and all of its details; then, as years went by it slowly became her old dollhouse. The armchair looks worn around the edges, peeling a little. When she was 15, did the dollhouse sit in a corner quietly gathering dust, or had it already been stored away in the attic? Was there a time when she looked at it and haughtily scoffed at the idea of playing with it again? Or did she still have the habit of fiddling fondly with the furniture, long after she had ‘outgrown’ it?

The details Mr Flower gave the house are wonderful – just look at all the yellow mouldings around the windows, the door, and the chimney. The bathroom is a great time capsule – in the back we see a chair for putting the doll’s clothes on when they get in to the bath, now missing a leg. The house is 650 mm tall and 488 wide, and it opens at the back. I would love to see the dolls that lived in it.

The list of objects accompanying it include a bed, a perambulator, a vacuum cleaner, a mirror, a book, and a piano. There are also two items described as ‘Christmas trees’ – one of which we can see on the balcony, and the other outside the house on the right. Was it a Christmas present?

To my delight, I saw that Mr Flower made a model butcher’s shop too (called Bybuy’s), also at the V&A and, in this case, on display. The shop features a similar design with the bricks and the yellow and green on the windows and was also made in 1942-43. It is a lovely recreation, full of details – could he have been a butcher? These were very hard times in London – creating a fully stocked butcher’s shop must have offered a lovely distraction from the reality of the situation, when meat was in short supply, and life was anything but plentiful. Did Rita’s dolls from her house go along to buy their meat from Bybuy’s, and then serve it for dinner?

One of the things I like about this is that it is so representative of a time and a place – the colours, the typical London terraced house design, the mouldings.

It is colourful and cosy, and full of detail that would have made it very much feel like Rita’s own. I wonder whether Rita Flower’s house looked anything like that in real life.

Drawing it made me think about what humans do when they play with dollhouses like this – a miniature world and miniature people to replicate life and perhaps explore possibilities. Through repeating and mimicking behaviour, we might try to grasp what this is all about, and where we fit in.

I also thought about how many actions we do in life are repetitive. When we look for comfort and groundedness, we hold on to repetitive actions that we recognise – the recognition calms us and provides some focus. We recognise a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom. Yes, I have one of those at home. Just like me, see? This is how life is lived. Life is a house and a bed and some stairs. We look for things that are made in our vernacular.  

I pondered about playing with scale, too, which seems invariably thought-provoking. I am often taken with artists who use scale effectively – Ron Mueck’s sculptures, for instance, move me and unsettle me by confusing my senses and making me feel like I am intruding on a very intimate, fragile moment.

The beauty of Alison Watt’s paintings of folds in white fabric or paper – which are sometimes so large she has had to use ladders while painting – is impressive and striking because size has been distorted and we are commanded to look at these folds in a meaningful way.

Playing with scale can enable us to ‘see’ something; it seems to unlock a different meaning. In this case, do we see ourselves better, and understand our lives better when we hold miniature versions of our world in our hands, looking at everything from above?

However, if you happen to be Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca in Beatrix Potter’s The Tale of Two Bad Mice – who come across a dollhouse and start salivating at the luscious feast they see through the windows – this human pastime of playing with scale and recreating things in miniature might be less amusing. I have always loved the way they get so angry and frustrated – why on earth would anyone make something that looks so appetising and so convincing out of plaster? What is the use of that?

The world of miniatures is going strong and seems to have been growing in the past couple of decades – see the mesmerising miniature food prepared by Tiny Kitchen, which has grown so popular. There is an interesting article about dollhouses and miniatures in The Atlantic from a few years back, which also mentions Lena Dunham’s film Tiny Furniture (2010), partly based on her mother Laurie Simmons’ photography of miniatures (see here, for instance).

I have been thinking about what it is that appeals about miniatures –what really tickles us is how all the little details are achieved. These are in fact the non-essential elements – the touches humans add for sensory pleasure. We are most delighted when a miniature dish looks right, even down to the little sprinkling of parsley. Do we need to sprinkle parsley on anything? We smile at the smallest things that have no functional purpose, but someone has laboured over them regardless. They are not ‘useful’, and perhaps that is why they make us feel something, much to Tom Thumb and Hunca Munca’s annoyance.

 I remember being convinced that The Borrowers was a very plausible story, and often fantasized that we had some of these tiny humans living at home. I loved the fact that they used items from the dollhouse.

  "Wait a minute," pleaded the boy. Again he reached behind him; again the hand came down; and there, beside the dresser, where there was barely room for it, was a very small doll's chair; it was a Victorian chair, upholstered in red velvet. "Oh!" Arrietty exclaimed again and Pod said shyly: "Just about fit me, that would."
  "Try it," begged the boy, and Pod threw him a nervous glance. "Go on!" said Arrietty, and Pod sat down—in his night-shirt, his bare feet showing. "That's nice," he said after a moment.
  "It would go by the fire in the sitting room," cried Arrietty; "it would look lovely on red blotting paper!"

And don’t you think Rita Flower’s miniature scuffed armchair would look lovely on red blotting paper?