Category:Titania's Palace

"The Badge of Her Iridescence", Titania's Palace logo used on the Tuck's Postcards series [image info]

Titania's Palace is a famous and extravagantly exquisite dollhouse built in Ireland by the cabinetmakers James Hicks & Sons, under commission from Sir Nevile Wilkinson (1869 – 1940).

The eighteen-room dollhouse is built to standard 1:12 dollhouse scale, and was built over a period spanning approximately 1907 to 1922, and is full of miniature artworks and antique dollhouse furniture. The palace was exhibited in Ireland and around the world, raising money for Irish children's charities.

It's rated as one of the World's greatest dollhouses, along with Queen Mary's Dolls' House, and Titania's replacement, Tara's Palace.

The car

Unusually for Fairy Queens, Queen Titania also apparently owned a 1/12-scale car called the Grey Fairy, a ~1907 15hp Humber Tourer.

1967, 1978 auctions, relocation to Egeskov Castle, Denmark

When further touring became impractical, the palace was put up for auction in 1967, and moved to England where it stayed for around ten years before being auctioned again, at which point it was widely assumed that it would end up back in Ireland.

However, the dollhouse was bought at this second auction in 1978 by the Lego company and is currently on display in the Rigborg Room, Egeskov Castle, Denmark.

Tara's Palace

Shocked by the fact that a major piece of Irish Heritage had now left the country, apparently permanently, a group of Irish antiques dealers created a consortium to build a world-class replacement, and after around twenty years of work, the new dollhouse, Tara's Palace, was installed at the Museum of Childhood in Dublin, where it remains as a tourist attraction.