Nuremberg kitchens date back at least to 1572, when one was given to Dorothea and Anna, the Princesses of Saxony, daughters of Augustus, Elector of Saxony aged five and ten.
Since then, many adult collectors as well as children have owned
multi-room dollhouses, but these one-room kitchens seem to have almost
always been thought of as girls’ playthings. They reached the height of
their popularity in the 1800s. In the early part of the century they
were assembled by artisans working from their homes, who produced a
remarkably large volume of toys made by hand. By the later part of the
century they were being manufactured in even greater numbers in
industrialized factories by such firms as Moritz Gottschalk, Gebrüder Bing, and Märklin.
German mothers would pass on their childhood kitchens to their
daughters, which became a widespread practice by the nineteenth century.
By this custom, Nuremberg kitchens that might have been very up-to-date
when first made would be noticeably old-fashioned after decades of
being handed down as a family heirloom. Similarly, while many
nineteenth-century German toy manufacturers offered miniature versions
of all the latest kitchen gadgets, their catalogs also showed toy
kitchens that went virtually unchanged for decades, as did many of their
pots, pans, and dishes. Thus, late nineteenth- and early
twentieth-century examples often incorporate components that were
distinctly anachronistic by that time.
Nuremberg kitchens were also often associated with the Christmas
holidays. In many German families, they were only brought out to be
played with at Christmastime, when they served as part of the
traditional holiday decorations and as a seasonal toy. It was popular to
give little girls items for their toy kitchens as Christmas presents,
on their birthdays and similar occasions.
The purpose of Nuremberg kitchens has usually been explained by
dolls’ house historians as meant to teach girls lessons in housekeeping
and cooking.
However, these model kitchens are probably better understood as meant
to encourage girls to adopt traditionally gendered social roles by
making housekeeping seem fascinating through the appeal of attractive
and impressive playthings. It would have been much easier for mothers to
teach their daughters how to cook by taking them to the real kitchens
in their homes and having them observe and assist with preparing meals
than to provide miniaturized counterparts. Also, given that these toy
kitchens had layouts that were more aesthetic and theatrical than
accurately representational of real kitchens in full scale houses, that
they often evoked nostalgia as family antiques or as deliberately
old-fashioned new products, and that they were often associated more
with the festivities of Christmas than with the practicalities of
everyday life, Nuremberg kitchens were probably not truly meant
primarily to provide girls with practical training in the skills of
homemaking. Instead, they were intended to generate wonder and
amusement, to make kitchens seem magical, and thereby inspire girls to
anticipate and desire their traditionally expected future roles as
homemakers. Read more...
presented by Pat Arnell.
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