‘Wonderful’: tiny tackroom takes the stage at Royal Academy of Arts

If you’re visiting the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition this year, you might notice a familiar sight.

One of the exhibits in the annual show, which has run since 1769, is a tiny tackroom, complete with mucking-out equipment, saddle and bandages – and miniature copies of H&H.

Sheila Kettle’s creation, of wood, stone, metal and leather, is built on a 1:12 scale. It stands 15cm high, and is the result of, she estimates, over 150 hours’ work.

Sheila told H&H her first miniature model was for her parents’ 50th anniversary. She took a dolls’ house and filled it with things relevant to her family and their lives.

“I gave it to them and they thought it was absolutely marvellous, because it was so personal,” she said, adding that she has created similar personal miniature displays, featuring everything from tiny replicas of photos to books the recipients have written, as well as more generic models.

“I’ve made about 12 of the generic ones, one being The Tack Room – and I know nothing about horses,” she said. “I was trying to come up with different ideas and felt equestrianism was one that might make people think ‘Oh, look at that!’”

Sheila’s first step in making such a model is an “awful lot of research” into what to include. This clearly paid off, as present in the tiny tackroom is just about everything a horse owner could need, including bandages and boots, supplements, a British Horse Society publication – and of course the copies of H&H, which are real covers Sheila downloaded then shrunk to the right size.

“I’ve tried to recreate something as close to reality as possible,” she said.

The finding and shrinking images takes a great deal of time, and just about everything else bar the chains, which are old necklaces, is made from scratch; the tack from kid leather as it is soft, supple and easy to work with on such a small scale. Even the hooks and clips on the tack are hand-made.

The Tack Room has already been sold, for £1,600.

“I went to see it the first week, never having been at the Royal Academy before, and that was really quite good,” she said. “I was disappointed not to see a red dot on it then! But it was exciting to see it there, then two weeks later, I got an email to say it had sold, and I had quite an acclaimed London artist call who was disappointed it had gone. It’s wonderful.”

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