Cheney Miniatures at the Baltimore Museum of Art

Looking for an interesting outing for you and your daughters? Grab your girls and head for the Baltimore Museum of Art. Elementary school age girls will squeal in delight at the miniature rooms in the Cheney collection.

Elizabeth F. Cheney commissioned Eugene Cupjack, the acclaimed miniature maker from Park Ridge, Illinois, to make a series of tiny English and American rooms in the styles of the 17th to 19th century architecture and interior design. The miniature rooms are all scaled one inch to one foot. Almost all the items in the tiny rooms were made by Cupjack in his Illinois studio.

Although each miniature room is a work of decorative art comprised of tiny craft, the exhibition looks like a group of every girl's wildest doll house fantasy. You will know you are educating your daughter in modern decorative arts and crafts, but she will see only a series of spectacular doll houses.

The Baltimore Museum of Art clearly understands its audience because under each tiny room is a step stool so that younger art patrons can examine the rooms up close and in detail. Although some youngsters expressed concern that there were no dolls in any of the rooms, one group of ten year old girls vigorously debated which room each girl liked the best and which "doll house" each wanted to keep as her own.

Ms. Cheney was an honorary trustee of the Baltimore Museum of Art from 1978 until her death in1985. The miniature collection was bequeathed to the museum in 1987 and is now part of the permanent collection.

The Baltimore Museum of Art offers free admission to guests, along with audio tours of the museum. The museum is open from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm on Wednesday through Friday and from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm on the weekend. The museum is located at 10 Museum Drive at the corner of North Charles and 31st Streets, three miles north of Baltimore's Inner Harbor in the neighborhood of Charles Village.

Photo:
Miniature American Bedroom in the Federal Style, 1790-1810