House Sit Adventure

JOHN BELLEMY COMPLEX
H.001 - JOHN BELLEMY -CA. 1880
A copy of the artist's own home, which still stands in West Newton, Massachusetts. Electrified by the miniature's previous owners, Mr. and Mrs. G. Canfiled, and restored by Pat Arnell.
Additional artisans: Era Pearce, landscaping; Donna Henricks, vegetable garden.

THE BIRD IN A CAGE 2018.1.1
SALAVAT FIDAI 2017
JUMBO SIZE PENCIL

AUTOMATED HOUSE EMIL WICK
H.014 EMIL WICK CA. 1885
Three story wooden house or hotel, typical of Basel, Switzerland in the early 1800s, and populated with mechanical figures animated by a key-wound and weight driven mechanism. Inside the cabinet base is a music cylinder that chimes two different tunes.

BRINGING A MINIATURETO LIFE EMIL WICK AND HIS AUTOMATED HOUSE
Born in 1816, Emil Wick was the second youngest of six children in a middle class family of Basel, Switzerland. He grew up a keen student of physics and other sciences, and at 18 he began a three-year apprenticeship with a machinist and scientific instrument maker in Zurich. Wick took to the work like a natural, and soon became an expert at crafting microscopes and other fine optical instruments.
Once on his own, he prospered with his own optic shop back in Basel. Success allowed him to indulge his passion for travel and history, and he trekked across southern Europe sketching old buildings and observing the people and places he encountered. One of the first in Switzerland to experiment with photography, Wick opened a studio specializing in daguerreotype portraits of well-to-do families and the elite of Basel. This enterprise also proved lucrative, and at the age of 45 Wick retired to, as he described it, the life of "a man of small private means." Because of his independence, and his penchant for intricate machinery, Wick pursued another hobby he'd had since childhood - building small tableaus and clocks with animated mechanisms such as the one that brings this miniature house to life.
Though almost certainly influenced by the Swiss tradition of elegant clock making, Wick's engineering is delightfully chaotic.
The inner workings of this house are a web of string, pulleys, wires, and cams set in motion by the descent of a carefully balanced weight Winding a key inserted into the front of the miniature raises the weight, which also spins a music box cylinder hidden in the cabinet below.
Despite their jumbled appearance, Wick's mechanics yield surprisingly sophisticated animation. There are over 30 different movements, some of them remarkably complex. The dancers on the upper balcony, for example, don't just spin randomly, but pause and pirouette in step with a stately waltz.
Wick modeled all his figures on people he actually knew, perhaps using his skill as a portrait photographer to capture their personality in miniature. Though simply carved, each one is individually detailed and no doubt would have been recognizable to Wick's family and friends.

TRENCHARD & STEEP ST IN VICTORIAN BRISTOL, U.K.
A Diorama by Bill O'Malley
JULY 12, 2022 THROUGH JULY 23, 2023
Years ago, I stumbled upon a black & white photo by John Hill Morgan of some deteriorated buildings in 1866 Bristol, England. One of my hobbies is photography, which was the first attraction to the image. The high-quality image depicted buildings of advanced age and in very poor condition in a depressed area of the city. The photo also provided a fascinating look at life in those squalid conditions. I later learned that the buildings were demolished a few years after the image was taken so the photo records buildings that no longer exist.
I also build scale models. Inspired by the photograph, I thought I could build a scale model of this scene! That is how my fascination with photography and scale modeling led me to the Bristol Streetscape, creating in miniature the effects of age, wear, and environmental effects to weather' the scene to be as realistic as possible.
- Bill O'Malley

LIFE IN MINIATURE
Miniaturist Pam Throop specialized in recreating historic houses from around the world. The exquisite detail that went into her miniatures - based on extensive research into the past and present of each building - presents the viewer with a vivid portrait not only of the house itself, but of the people who lived within it.
The inns and manor houses of England presented an especially appealing subject for Throop's craftsmanship. Alderley Manor is based on a real Tudor style house in the county of Gloucestershire, and dates back to at least the l6th century when it first was mentioned in court and parish records. The ancestors of the artist's husband, Adrian Throop, actually owned the house much later. The Load of Mischief Pub is another Tudor building, this one based upon an inn within the village of Lacock in England's picturesque Cotswolds region.
Both miniature houses are depicted as they might have appeared in Edwardian times, in the early years of the 20th century. Pubs and inns were always an important part of English village life, when quite often ale or wine was safer to drink than the local water. Sensitive visitors to The Load of Mischief will be heartened to discover that men and women are served in separate rooms. The owners know it is far too shocking for ladies and gents to mingle! Thanks to the miniaturist's attention to detail and the authentic labels on the tiny bottles, we know the pub's liquid refreshments are all the local favorites. Below in the basement, freshly delivered barrels of ale have just rolled down the ramp from the street above, so there's little worry the patrons will go dry.

BRIDGE HOUSE NUMBER 4 OF 4
W.173 BRIAN LONG 2010
Based on a structure at Ambleside in Cumbria, Engiand. The original structure was built approximately 300 years ago to link the former Ambleside Hall and its gardens with the orchards on the opposite bank of Stock Ghyll, a stream that cut this part of the estate in two.
Much legend surrounds the origins and use of the house, including suggestions that it was built by a Scotsman to avoid paying land tax, that it was an apple store, toll bridge and (most likely) a simple garden retreat for a wealthy land owner. Today it is owned by the National Trust and is used as an information center.

CHINESE BREAD DOUGH FIGURES
UNKNOWN ARTISTS MID-20™ CENTURY MIXED MEDIA
Bread dough figure sculpting, known as mianhua or miansu in China, is a folk-art tradition that dates to the Han Dynasty (206-220 AD), when small figurative sculptures were created as ceremonial sacrifices. These traditions evolved over the centuries, and contemporary dough sculptures may be used as decorations for weddings, festivals and holidays, or funerals. Subjects are typically well-known characters from legends, fairytales, and the Chinese Zodiac, though modern cartoon characters are increasingly popular. The dough is made from flour, glutinous rice, honey, powdered sugar, and edible food color. This folk-art tradition is passed on by oral teaching and practice. Artisans sculpt their characters on the ends of bamboo sticks using a variety of tools. Many of these tiny figures have very fine details including teeth, fingernails, and eyelashes!

JUST SUITS
Dozens of wooden cigar boxes became the lumber from which this elaborate house was constructed, sometime around 1900. The builder might have favored the Just Suits brand, as the remnant of a box of Just Suits londrette cigars was found in the miniature's attic.
Several stamped logos identifying the Buchanan & Lyall tobacco company are still visible beneath the attic roof.
Cigar boxes were a popular resource for folk artists and craftsmen of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Small bundles of cigars originally were packaged in pig bladders - not the most appealing material for miniaturists - but when wooden boxes became the standard in the 1850s, artists suddenly found a plentiful source of raw material.
Although aromatic cedar was the most popular type of wood for cigar packaging, the boxes crafted into the walls and shingles of this house were made of walnut.

THE LEDGE CARAVAN, BRIAN LONG 2006
Number 3 in a limited edition of 25, signed and numbered by the artist. Interior fully fitted with bed, cooking stove, a vanity unit, and two small dressers. Under the bed is a folding table which opens and hooks over the side of the bed. Below is a large drawer that would often have been used as a cradle. All furniture is mahogany. Caravans of this style are also known as vardos, the traditional horse-drawn caravans used by Romani people.
Additional artisans: Gloria Faskin, Wally and Lee Jacobson.
CONTOR PATRICIA ARNELL W. 010Læs mere