A Miniature Carl Larsson Christmas
Clicking on this post will lead you to the series “Christmas in a Carl Larsson Dollhouse,” either by clicking on the series title in the category sidebar on the right or on the related posts found underneath. There are ten posts in the series. To find the next post quickly, click here — Design Details
My mother staged an interpretation of Carl Larsson’s house at Christmas in 1910 inside a standard box doll house shell. The house, done in 1:12 scale, was in a holiday display at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis several decades ago. The trim work, decorations, and some of the furniture construction is her own. I found my mother’s inventory and will note the provenance of items if she recorded them, particularly regarding the dolls. Most of the dolls were purchased from individual artisans at miniature shows.
Some of the interiors are based on Carl Larsson’s paintings and drawings from the book, Carl and Karin Larsson: Creators of the Swedish Style (Bullfinch Press, 1997). The house contains motifs from Carl’s paintings and was not intended to be an exact replica of his home.
My now elderly mother is thrilled that I have created a free online museum for people from all over the world to view her period miniatures. She has degrees in fine art and design from Stanford and Parsons, and she created a series of period of historical dollhouses over two decades in her later years. You can view her French chateau set in 1810 in the series “A Miniature French Chateau in 1810.”
You may notice a tiny string of Norwegian flags on the Christmas tree. The tree remained on display throughout the holiday show with the flags in place and no one noticed! The Norwegian flags were a nod to her husband’s dual Norwegian and Swedish heritage.
I found a hand-written note in her records about her creative process that reads as follows:
In many ways it would be easier to build a Carl Larsson room box than a doll house with many rooms. I spent a summer in Sweden in the mid-50s but never visited this famous house. Friends have told me it is “small” in feeling, with a tight stairway and small rooms. The appeal of the house for me is the way Carl Larsson and his wife Karin demonstrated to people how to use simple, bold fabrics, antiques, and modern furnishings to bring beauty in their homes.
They closed the door on the dark, heavy, busy Victorian era. Carl’s paintings in The Home inspired a following in England, Germany, and all of Scandinavia. Karin’s weavings started a new design trend in weaving and embroidery that brought Sweden world recognition for modern design 40 years later.
I tried to make my doll house a handsome Swedish house with a few of the unique windows and construction details he chose to describe in his paintings.
Photos by Karen Nyenhuis.