Category:Nuways dollhouse furniture (Bassett-Lowke): Difference between revisions

work in progress - do not link or index until completed

Logo for the Bassett-Lowke NUWAYS range of dollhouse furniture, showing a silhouette of three Charles Rennie Mackintosh-styled chairs and table against a slightly oriental-looking orange disc. The image above has been redrawn and "cleaned up" from the original version [image info]

NUWAYS was an (apparently quite brief) range of Bassett-Lowke branded dollhouse furniture that had its own catalogue in 1931. The museum has some of this range in its collection, and will be creating a listing as part of its new 25th anniversary dollhouse furniture display in 2016.

Theme

The NUWAYS range was fairly restricted, and seemed to be based on W.J. Bassett-Lowke's own tastes in modern furniture design, to the extent that the name of the range – Nuways – appears to be based on the name of WJ's own 1926 house New Ways, designed by Peter Behrens with 1916 furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

The extent to which this may have been a personal project of W.J. Bassett-Lowke is suggested by the Nuways logo. The very small version printed on the catalogue (apparently in two variations) is slightly crude, with the chair-detailing oddly asymmetrical, and while the person who drew the logo seems to have been happy with the first five "angular" letters, the "S" seemed to give them more trouble.

It's our current best guess that the logo might have been drawn by WJ himself.

Manufacture

As with many Bassett-Lowke product ranges, the Nuways range seems to have been manufactured by outside sources for the company. Our example of the rather nice fireplace is stamped "foreign" on the back in purple ink, and we're currently pretty sure that it's a piece manufactured by Kibri of Germany.

As we go though our dollhouse furniture collection in preparation for the 2016 dollhouse furniture display, we'll continue to research further.

Introduction to the 1931 catalogue

THE furniture illustrated in this catalogue represents the first attempt to provide scale models for the doll's house for although we have brought the working models of ships and railways to perfection and so provided the boys with the best of toys we have hitherto sadly neglected the interests of girls.

The average doll's house is a crude affair and the furniture is not only often ugly, but ridiculously out of scale. Every girl will know the house where the sewing machine is as big as the sideboard. It has been difficult to decide what scale would be best to use – if too large a one, the doll's house would be unwieldy, if too small, the smaller articles such as knives and forks would be reduced to minute sizes and would soon be lost and would also be expensive to make. After much experiment and thought, we decided upon the scale of one inch to the foot. Furniture to this scale fits in admirably with the average rooms of the doll's house which measures eight or nine inches high and about 18 by 12 inches in floor area. This was, incidentally, the scale used for the Queen's Doll's House, which is the finest work of its kind in existence.

The articles illustrated in this catalogue are only the first of a series and provide for the furnishing of the dining and living rooms, the kitchen and the scullery. They represent however, over twelve months' work. All the articles are of continental manufacture, but it is hoped that the demand will be such as to enable us to undertake the manufacture of them at our Works in Northampton.

It has been our aim, not only to make scale model furniture, but to make sound and well designed furniture. A glance at the illustrations will show that we have succeeded in our aim.

— Foreword , Nuways: Scale Model Furniture, Bassett-Lowke Ltd., June 1931

Acknowledgements

We're indebted to our friends at 78 Derngate, W.J. Bassett-Lowke's Charles Rennie Mackintosh-furnished house in Northampton, for sending us a colour photocopy of the 1931 "Nuways" catalogue from their files. This has been invaluable for research and identification of the B-L dollhouse furniture pieces in our collections.

See also:

• 78 Derngate
• New Ways

External sources

• 78 Derngate: The Charles Rennie Mackintosh House (78derngate.org.uk)
• Barbara Floyer, Bassett-Lowke and Dolls' Houses, 2007