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Frederic Marès Museum

Lead soldiers collection

The collection of lead soldiers has an important place amongst the museum’s broad selection of toys and games. Photo by Guillem F-H. Frederic Marès Museum. Barcelona.

 

The collection of lead soldiers has an important place amongst the museum’s broad selection of toys and games. Photo by Guillem F-H. Frederic Marès Museum. Barcelona.

 

One of the most popular pastimes in Catalonia during the 19th century was playing with lead soldier figurines. In that century and for a good part of the 20th century there were a great many workshops throughout Europe dedicated to making these small armies. The pieces were not in fact made from lead alone but from a lead, tin and antimony alloy. There were different sizes, the most common being between 20 and 90 millimetres high. With more or less exactitude, they reproduce the various units and battalions of Europe armies and their colonial contemporaries.

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