Dollhouse

Period1891

Place MadeNew York or New Jersey, U.S.A.

MediumPine, maple, poplar, and other woods, silk, cotton, steel, brass, electrical wire, glass

Dimensions45 × 71 × 17.5 in. (114.3 × 180.3 × 44.5 cm)

ClassificationsDolls

Credit LineGift of Mrs. Leighton Lobdell, 1976

Object number1976.3.1

DescriptionA large and elaborate doll's house, constructed of yellow, white and green painted pine and other woods, of two stories plus and attic and a small side wing, with a low hipped roof fitted with three dormer windows, a pair of chimneys, and a low wooden railing. The house has a removable front panel, which pulls away to reveal three first floor and three second floor rooms. A staircase allows access from the first floor center room to the second. Rooms are decorated to serve as parlor, kitchen, library, bedrooms, and bathroom. The entire dollhouse is fixed to a sturdy wood base resting atop a large three-drawer storage cabinet, built to hold the doll house's furnishings and accessories.
NotesThis elegant dollhouse was designed and personally built by Francis Henry Bacon. Born in 1856 in Chicago, Illinois, Bacon was the eldest of seven children. After graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1877 as a "Special Student in Architecture," Bacon spent a year touring Europe. From 1881 to 1883, he was a member of the Assos archaeological excavation project sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America. Bacon spent the next 41 years editing the project's finds, publishing "Investigations at Assos: Drawings and Photographs of the Buildings and Objects Discovered During the Excavations of 1881-1882-1883" with excavation team members Joseph T. Clarke and Robert Koldewey in 1924. After returning to the United States, Bacon worked as a draughtsman for architects McKim, Mead & White as well as Henry Hobson Richardson. He also worked for the firm of Herter Brothers as furniture designer and draughtsman. Bacon also worked for the furniture and design firm of A. H. Davenport from 1885 to 1908. After Albert Davenport's death, Bacon started his own company, Francis H. Bacon Co. "designers and manufacturers of Furniture, Draperies, and Interior Decorations." Bacon's design sensibility and interpretation of the Colonial Revival style during the late 19th and early 20th century made him a recognized force in the field of interior design in the United States. Bacon married Alice Calvert, niece of the American Consul at Canakkale, Turkey, in 1885. The couple had one son, Frederick Calvert Bacon (1886-1947). Bacon's younger brother, Henry Bacon, was also a well-recognized designer and architect, most known for the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. In or around 1891, New York and Rumson resident Edward Dean Adams asked Bacon to design and construct a large and elegant dollhouse for his daughter, Ruth Adams.

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