There are 35 paintings by 20 different artists hanging on the walls of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. This view of Windsor Castle, relatively large at 21cm long, is the only picture in the Entrance Hall. Letters from Edwin Lutyens to Princess Marie Louise reveal their belief that such a familiar scene and important residence should be given the ‘place of honour’ in this miniature home.

Scottish artist David Scott Cameron was known for his serene, panoramic landscape scenes, often featuring bodies of water painted in intense blues (401072). This painting is typical of his oeuvre, although it seems to be an original composition rather than a scaled-down version of an existing work. Cameron paints the conglomeration of the castle’s buildings with architectural precision, and in the foreground highlights the natural beauty of the River Thames and its green banks.

Cameron put his powers of miniaturisation even further to the test when contributing two watercolour paintings to the portfolios in the Dolls’ House Library (926884 and 926883). As C. E. Hughes commented in The Book of the Queen’s Dolls’ House (1924), Cameron ‘usually would cover ten times the allotted space with a single sweep of the brush!’