Doll House; Peter Norton Family Christmas Project 2002

Label

This two-story brick doll house is based on Yinka Shonibare’s own Victorian town house in the East End of London. Although doll houses today are mass-produced, historically they were especially popular among the European elite, and could be found in the nursery of any upper-class English Victorian household. The chairs and bed are covered in Shonibare’s signature dutch wax cotton print—the vibrantly colored textile primarily associated with West African culture but first industrialized in Holland and inspired by Indonesian Batik designs. The print is juxtaposed with a reference to Western art history; a miniature rendition of the 1767 painting The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard also decorates the interior.

From the 2023 exhibition Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, curated by Alexandra Thomas, Curatorial Research Associate

Course History

Studio Art 77.01, Senior Seminar II, Karol Kawiaka, Spring 2023

Studio Art 77.02, Senior Seminar II, Jen Caine, Spring 2023

Exhibition History

A Space for Dialogue 19, Playing Around with Art, Dianne Choie, Class of 2004, Education Department Intern, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, April 27-May 23, 2004.

A Space for Dialogue 91: (Re)Imagining Home, Elissa Watters, Class of 2015, Main Lobby, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 24-December 6, 2015.

Collectanea: The Museum as Hunter and Gatherer, Alvin P. Gutman Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, May 21, 2005-February 12, 2006.

Cultural Exchange, the Body, and Art and Technology, Art History 2, Harrington Gallery Teaching Exhibition, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 25-March 9, 2003.

Homecoming: Domesticity and Kinship in Global African Art, Harteveldt Family Gallery, Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, and Northeast Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, New Hampshire, July 22, 2023–May 25, 2024.

Publication History

Annual Report 2005-6, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover: Trustees of Dartmouth College, 2006, ill. p.50.

Elissa Watters, A Space for Dialogue 91: (Re)Imagining Home, Hanover, New Hampshire: Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, 2015, checklist no.5

Provenance

Commissioned for the 2002 Peter Norton Family Christmas Project; given to the Director of the Hood Museum of Art, 2002; given to the present collection, 2002.

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