Merry Christmas and a happy Newyear!

Dear Friends,

I wish you a very merry Christmas! And May the new year bring you all the good that it may hold.

I look forward to see you all in 2020!

In Huis ter Swinnendael there is no Christmas tree unfortunately. But I do have this little nativity scene. Mary, Joseph, baby J. And a mule and an ox. Carved out of White stone. Place in a little stone pyramid. Now how is that for a birth place?

The warmest season greetings,

Huibrecht

Does David's bum look big in this?

Hello my dear friends. Almost a month has passed since my haloween post. Time flies! And I had little time to spend on miniatures. But not all time has gone to waste. As the pictures above and below show I made a small dummy board to stand in the opening of a fireplace. 

Not so long ago people thought that dummyboards were a decorative type of firescreen. Used to protect the people in the room from the heat of the fire.  But a screen made of wood, paper, cloth and paint is not built to resist heat of a roaring fire. And it won't resist the flames, at least not for long.  So now the shared opninion is that surviving dummyboards (In France, Brittain and Holland at least) were used as summer hearths. Concealing the fireplace in a decorative way in the summermonths when they were not in use. By the mid 18th century they largely went out of use, but a country house like Huis ter Swinnendael is one of those places where these antiquated things seem to linger. Often dummy boards represent children, seated women like personifications of virtues. Here it is Cupid riding on the back of a dolphin. And his name is not David. ;-) 

As you may know we have moved to live in Spijkenisse for the duration of the building of our 1:1 house. It will take at least a year before we move into it so there is plenty of time to settle in. So when I learned that Spijkenisse has its own bi-annual dollhouse fair I had no reason nor an excuse not to go there.

So last Sunday I visited the fair and had a great time. It was the first time I went to this fair. It was smaller than in Arnhem and more shops than miniaturists but a great source for materials. As you can see I bought several wooden beads, supple burgundy coloured goats leather, glue, a plate miniature of a sugar caster and some resin moulds. Another great find was 2 sheets of mirror plastic.

That same week I received some brass stampings that I had ordered via Etsy. Three metal plaques that I will turn into black metal fire backs, just like the one I made earlier with a little copper plaque depicting either 'Harvest' or 'Autumn' or the goddes 'Ceres'. The new plaques show from left to right, a very well dressed Sheppardess, Diana laying an arrow on her bow, and a crest with a motto Ican't quite decipher. :-)

Together with these placques I bought two little frames and a few more stampings for which I will find a use soon enough. The little Rococo frame is turned into a standing mirror for a dressingtable. The other frame is decorated with a burning torch and a quiver full of arrows at the bottom. An oak branch and an olive branch on the sides and crowned by two birds. Symbols of death, valor, bravery and love. It is a frame meant to be filled by a hero. I will use it for a portrait of one of the male Zonneschuts who died in a war.

This week we were fortunate enough to have nothing on our social calendar. Not to be rude or unkind, but it was the first weekend we had to ourselves in eight weeks. So I enjoyed a sunday for miniature making. I chose simple tasks to get some things ready before starting on something new again. First order of the day was making two mirrors. The first is the standing rococo frame I have just bought, the second one is in a little frame I showed you in a blogpost a few months ago.

I cut out a cardboard backing for both of the frames and used those as templates for the mirror plastic. After cutting them out I layed the back of the standing mirror on the red goats leather I have bought. The dark red has a nice contrast with the golden colour of the frame.  

For the standing mirror I also cut out a backleg so the mirror can stand. For that I simply cut off the end of a coffeestick. I decorated it in the same way as the back of the mirror. The goats leather is so thin and supple that it is easy to work with. Smoothing it over edges withoud folds remaining was surprisingly easy. And lastly I carefully added the mirrorplastic. 

After all, They should reflect something if I want to call them mirrors... So here in the last pic you can see the end result. Two mirrors mirroring a porcelain bird and David's ass. ;-)

Thats it for now! I hope you have enjoyed reading this little post. I look forward to your comments and I hope to be back soon with progress on the marquetry chest that is nearly finished.

Huibrecht

A little horror story; Nightmare on Swinnendael...

There was a strange sound that woke up Belle Zonneschut. It was the middle of the night. She peeked though the curtains of her four poster bed but could see nothing. Not the painted ceiling, not the marbled wallpanels, nor the furniture in it. She was only married for two months to Carel Polyander and this was the first night she spend alone at Huis ter Swinnendael. He had to leave this evening on an errand for the Prince of Orange. He would be back soon. Wouldn't he? Silence...

It must have been a bad dream. She laid her head to rest on her pillow. Adamant to go back to sleep. But wait... There it was again.... Some kind of scratching. It must have been the wind. A tree branch scratching against a windowpane. Nothing to worry about. There it was again. A lengthy screech this time...

But wait. This was not her family house in The Hague. With the century old chestnut tree caressing the windows on the left of the second floor. This was a moated country house. The nearest trees stood at least 30 meters away, and those were clipped boxhedges. No not a tree...

Oh why was Carel not here? He would know what it was. Surely it could not be a ghost, could it? 

Silly me, she thought, I must have drunk a glass of wine too many. Or was the pheasant undercooked? It was probably the blancmange with those poached pears. They easily give you gas and bad dreams. Although... Could one really trust those newfangled potatoes?

Belle's ponderings about her lonely diner that evening was rudely disturbed by more scratching and a loud BANG. She sat upright in her bed. With eyes wide open she peered into the darkness around her. Whatever that was, was not done by an undercooked pheasant. She stepped out of her warm bed into the chilly room.

She found the bellpull and rang for the servants. Normally she would hear a distant bell ringing. And servants feet running towards her room to do her bidding. But now she heard nothing. She pulled again and again. More furious with every pull. But not a sound. With one last pull the rope in the ceiling snapped and the embroidered bell pull fell down on the floor. No bell had rung.

Godfried Schalken, Lady with a candle.

Now Belle really started to get scared. She found the door handle. the metal was so cold. She turned it and opened the door. Expecting to see light in the art gallery. But it was pitch black. Only the faintest moonlight fell through the lantern on top of the roof. But that, together with the candle she found and lit, was not enough to dispell the dark shadows in the corners. Belle walked up to the balustrade and looked down. She could hear the sounds coming from behind the diningroom door.

"Who is there?" she asked sharply. Surprised at the fear that was audible in her voice.
"Don't go there. You are not invited..."  a sombre voice whispered in her ear. Belle turned around but there was nobody there. The only eyes she could see in the shadows were those behind the varnish of the old painted portraits on the wall. Cold but watchful eyes. Belle decided that she had to know to what exactly she was not invited. It must be the servants. Making good use of their masters absense. How dared they! she was the mistress of this house. And she was going to get to the bottom of this. The fear that had gripped her moments ago had dissipated and turned into anger.

Belle walked towards the staircase. When she stepped on the top step she heard another bodyless voice behind her.
"The yearly banquet of the Zonneschuts of old. Those poor sods who lost their souls and died without the mercy of redemption. Don't go there..." Belle looked back but there was again nobody in sight. Belle hesitated. Lost souls? The servants are having a laugh at my expense!

Belle rushed down the stairs and felt the cold marble tiles of the hall under her bare feet. The candle snuffed out when she ran down the stairs. Now only the pale moonlight that shone through the windows remained. In front of the diningroom door she clearly heard the scratching and squeaking. She looked around her in the empty room. The portraits seemed to be watching her every move. Holding their breath. A loud bang from behind the door brought her back to the here and now.

"Well, I am warned... But why stop now?" she whispered. She put her hands on the door and wanted to push them open when she heard what seamed like a dozen voices whisper in alarm, "Go back, go back!" She shook her head in an attempt to shrug of her fear.  She pushed and the doors swung open. But nothing could have prepared her for what was in that diningroom.

The room was a mess with red eyed rats large and small crawling over the tables and into dishes. Eating the rotten foods and drinking the putrid wines that stood everywhere. The scratching and squeaking stopped immediately as the door opened. A chill made Belle shiver...

"She is not one of us..." the rats said as one. "She is alive. She still has her soul... Give us your soul! REDEEM US!" The rats, ghosts of Zonneschuts of passed ages turned to her. Adament to eat her soul out of her. Desperate to stop wandering this earth in perpetuety after death. Belle screamed her longs out. Turned and ran as quick as her feet could carry her. But he rats were faster and gained in on her. She could hear their voices rasping 'Your soul. Give us a bite of it!" She could feel their claws sink in her skin as they ran up here nightgown to reach her neck. She missed a step and fell....

She kept falling and falling and never hit the ground. Instead she woke up screaming. Cold sweat all over her body. It must have been a bad dream. But wait... There was a sound.... Some kind of scratching.

The End... or is it?

My treasures from the Arnhem Dollshouse september 2019

Hello my Friends,

I went to the Dollhouseshow in Arnhem last week. I enjoyed it very much as I do every year. Apart from seeing great new miniatures and dolls, it is nice to meet acquinted miniaturists and other friends again. And make new friends ofcourse. :-) This year I followed a workshop given by Chris Malcomson. I will tell you more about the workshop in a next post. This year I went a bit overboard with the number of miniatures that I purchased.

That is partly because Cocky Wildschut has decided to make this show her last to exhibit and sell her handmade and handpainted porcelain. Although I am relatively new to miniatures I have loved her work right from the start. And I have bought several pieces of her work in earlier Shows. But nothing lasts forever and this year she has decided that it is time to retire. So this was the last opportunity for me to acquire some more of her miniatures. I splashed out on a number of plates, salvers and vases as seen in the picture below.

1 Delftware plate, 1 with a Cinese design, and two Delft Majolica plates.

2 polychrome Chinese plates and 2 vases.

I was one of the first to enter the show and had her whole collection to pick from. In all honesty I have not held back and you could call me a bit selfish, but a House like Swinnendael needs a decent amount of period porcelain and Delftware. Apart from that, earlier this year I have followed two workshops for painting miniature porcelain given by Cocky. In he picture below you can see the result of my labours. I am quite pleased with the results, although it is obvious that I still have quite a lot to learn. (especialy when compared to Cocky's porcelain in the pictures above) :-)

Please do not brake

I just said that a house like Huis ter Swinnendael needs a fair amount of porcelain. And of course that is true. But in the kitchens and larders earthenware and stoneware are as equally important if not more so. In the post of my visit to Arnhem last september I bought several pieces of Keuls Aardewerk (Stoneware from Cologne) with its typical dark blue and light grey. They were made by elisabeth Causeret and she attende this years show. :-) This year I bought some more pieces. In the picture below you can see a large brown storage jar, a sieve or collander, a set of two green glazed Chinese ginger jars, a brown  storage jar with a wide opening  and two stoneware tankards. When you spent above a certain amount you can choose a little ceramic item as a present. I soon passed the limit and chose a blue glased vase. 

Utilitarian ware can be so beautiful! 

But a house needs more than plates and pots. I had asked Ilona from Miniumloon if she would make some of her famous tulips for me. She  was kind enough to do so and now I could collect them. 10 red tulips with yellow stripes and 5 yellow tulips with red stripes. aren't they gorgeous. Ilona had made more of these tulips and sold the rest in the show. I am sure that they sold quickly and easily. These tulips will get pride of place in my house.

So delicate!

Nowadays trade in ivory is banned an rightly so. But Ivory remains beautiful to see. Some miniaturists like Vonas stil make miniatures of ivory but use only old and reclaimed ivory from old billiard balls for example. Now those of you who know their work know how delicate it is. I bought only two small pieces. A seashell on an ivory stand and a handheld firescreen to protect a ladies face from the heat of a fire. This one is made with a delicate handle of ebony. 

Ebony and ivory... 

From the stand of Alison Davies I bought two of her new busts. I want to marble them with paint. But I have not yet decided what colours they will get. I think. The lady will remain white but with a coloured base. The Roman bust might end up in different types of stone like the busts in Versailles. But then again, maybe not.

I feel a bit bland, you? 

Fingers crossed. Not less detailed is this new plaster fireplace. In my opinion it is early Georgian but could also pass quite well as an example in the style of Louis de XIVth. It is intended for the diningroom. De decorations will remain white like carrara marble the base and large flat surfaces wil be painted to resemble grey and blue marble.

A bit of a grand affair...

Well my dear friends, it will come as no surprise to you that I totaly ignored budgetary restrictions this year. But I have no regrets of my choices. But that does means bread and water for the remainder of the month for me I'm afraid. ;-). 

It was a great show. Caught up with several friends I have made in our mini-world in the last few years. And there was so much more to see in the show, made by brilliant miniaturists from all over the world. I already have a little shoppinglist for the next fair... I know, dear friends, I am terrible. :-)

Untill next time, 

Huibrecht 

The build: Laying down the foundations.

Hello my friends,

I think this title is quite apropriate. There are no cementmixers in site. Nor is there a large hole in the ground where foundations will be made. However. If you have read this blog from the beginning you know that I first started sketching and drawing several buildings in different styles and of different era's. (Georgian, Neo Gothic and Dutch Classicism) Then, when  I had chosen my theme and era, I built a maquette or mock up of the future miniature house  from cardboard and paper.

And now finally, over two years after my first sketch, I have started the first of the twenty-one rooms in earnest. therefor now is the time to tell a bit more about the construction that I have in mind.  I will not build the house as one solid behemoth of wood, paper, glue and paint. The house will be made up of three 'cabinets' one for each of the three wings as you can see in the drawing below. So we'll have the west wing, the central part and the east wing.

All good things come in three's

Every one of the twenty-one rooms will be its own roombox. The grand staircase and the ancestal gallery in the central part  will be double height and rise up almost 68 cm. (am I mad?) but the other rooms will be proper roomboxes. When finished they will slide into place in the structure of the house that also forms the outer shell of the house.

Lines, lines, lines...

The roomboxes will be made not per floor but per wing. Therefor I will start with the seperate rooms in the east wing. This means that from the service rooms in the cellar I will first make the "kookkeuken" (warm or cooking kitchen) and the "Rentmeesterskamer" (stewards room).

From the Beletage I will make the ''eetkamer" (diningroom) and the "kleine salon" (small drawingroom). Then comes the pivate apartment of sir Zonneschut with the "bibliotheek" (library) and the "blauwe slaapkamer" (blue room) and a corridor on the second floor. Finaly the attic floor will show the "kleerzolder" (clothes or washing attic) and the opbergzolder (storage attic).

When they are finished, which will take a few years I guess :-S, I will start on the second phase of the build which will either be the central part or the west wing of Huis ter Swinnendael.

All the outer walls together....

But back to the first room. If you click on this link you can read up on the 6 rooms that will form the cellar floor of the house. That page is written in Dutch but with the translation tool in the top right you can translate it into your own language  if you prefer. But as I said only two of those six basement rooms will come in the wing that I'll make first And those are those in the pictures below. 

Model of the "Rentmeesterskamer", the stewards room. 

Model of the "kookkeuken", the cooking kitchen.

My first attempt to cut the walls were not succesful. I did it by hand and the cuts were not nearly as precise as they needed to be. I am saving up for a table saw but with all the miniatures I buy in between that fund gets to be depleted every few months. ;-D

So I have drawn the walls of the first roomboxes with the help of a computer design program, in order to send them to a company that lasercuts different materials to order. I have to tweak the drawings a bit becaus I have decided that the walls that will open up the rooms as doors will be in different places than originaly planned. I plan on doing that after next weekend when  I have visited the miniature show in Arnhem.

And, as you can see in the picture of the Kookkeuken, I will have a lo of tiles to make... A huge pile of tiles...

I honestly can not wait. The game 's afoot!

Huibrecht

Visiting grand houses: The importance of symmetry

Two tourists in Asterdam

Hello my friends. On my last visit to Amsterdam I took a friend of mine to see two museumhouses in our capital city. It is not only fun to engorge oneselve in the beautifully restored interiors. They are also great for gaining inspiration for colourschemes and details in decor for my own project.

Both houses are canalhouses in Amsterdam. Now Huis ter Swinnendael will be a large country house but these two museumhouses are nevertheless very interesting for my project. In this post I will show you some of the rooms of the Van Loon house. My next post wil be about the Willet-Holthuysen house.

the red drawing room

 This house with its sandstone clad front facade is a magnificent private residence built in 1672 by the architect Adriaen Dortsman. Its first occupant was the painter Ferdinand Bol. Then it came in the hands of the Van Loon family who own it to this day.

The blue drawing room

As the photographs show, Most rooms are decorated in a rococo influenced decor. Little of the late 17th century decor remains. This is quite common in these kind of houses. Interiors were often more subjected to fashion than the exteriors. The same will aply for Huis ter Swinnendael. Some rooms will have primarily a 17th centrury baroque decor or a 18th century rococo or clascicist decor. In the Netherlands more ore often called succesively Louis 14th (Baroque), Louis 15th (Rococo), or Louis 16th (Clascicism). 

The Diningroom

In the main receptionrooms on the ground floor you can see a great use of the colour combinations that they used. Although I do not know if these combinations are the same as the original colours 2 centuries ago, or are choices of a later date, they suit the rooms well.  The greyish green with red fabric of the red drawingroom is a favorite combination that can be seen in several drawings and paintings from that time. In the posts about the different rooms in my cardboard model for Huis ter Swinnendael I do no use orange, but the combination of muted orange and clay in the diningroom I find very atractive. So who knows...

The master bedroom

This bedroom is the grandest of the bedrooms. Its layout resembles the blue bedroom in the cardboard maquette that I have made. The red fabric contrasts nicely to the pale blue. But the next photo is, in my opnion, the best of the bunch.

... And the importance of symmetry!

This is in my eyes the best feature of the house. The closed door you see is not a door. The open door is the actual entrance to the room. If you stand in the corridor the door on that side is bang in the middle of the wall of the corridor. The bedroom wall is shorter because of the built in cabinets left and right of the fourposter bed. But a symmetrical decoration of the wall was very desirable. So when the actual door closes the walltreatment is perfectly symmetrical but that grand door, complete with its overdoor grissaile painting is false and has no doorknob because it is a false door.

I think it is a matter of getting ones priorities right. :-)

I hope you have enjoyed this little summerpost and till next time.

Huibrecht

A miniature gueridon tutorial: 1. "I wanna see your face painted black"....

Hello my friends. 

Perhaps you recognise this line from 'Paint it black' by the Rolling Stones? Don't worry. I am not morrose, lovelost or depressed. But that song keeps popping up in my head when I work on this next little project.

Many of you will know gueridons. A type of sidetable/ pedestal which were quite popular from the 17th century onwards. They were highly decorative and there stem could have the shape of a collumn, a balustre or the carved figure of an animal or a human. The human figures were, depending on the size of the Gueridon, either shaped as putti, Cherubs or full grown people/ mythical figures. Blackamoor was the name given to those where the stem was carved and painted like African natives. Like the pair beneath which I found on the site of Sotheby's. Although some examples with Asian or North American Indian figures do exist. Those are very rare however. 

source: http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/19th-century-furniture-n08983/lot.246.html

You may know that Mulvany and Rogers also used pairs of beautiful blackamoors made by John Hodgson in some of their dollshouses. Their version(s) of Versailles has them for example. The photo beneath depicts them, though not in a Versailles setting. 

source: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/john-hodgsons-pair-blackamoors-signed-1800396916

For a large countryhouse like Huis ter Swinnendael a pair of this kind of gueridons or torchères may still be a bit too grand but I believe that Carel Polyander Zonneschut could have brought them back from his ambassadorship in Paris. So with that in mind I started sketching...

Remember the two 'clock angels' I bought at a fleamarket last year and used to adorn a wall mounted clock? I did not quite know what to do with them. Their faces did not have the right proportions for classical angels. And their bodies were quite elongated. A few weeks ago I got the idea of trying to turn them in a pair of gueridons/ blackamoors. But how should I proceed from here?

First I had to rid them of there wings. They are made in the second half of the 20th century and made from a cheap alloy called spelter. So if my attempt should fail, the loss of them would not be that great. I took a pair of plyers to hand and ripped the wings of their back.

It is not as cruel as it sounds. Luckily they did not feel a thing. ;-) Next I proceeded to repair their backs. I shaped the 'wounds' of the remaining wingattachment with needlefiles, and used filler paste to fill the holes. Lastly I used coarse and fine grade sandpaper to smooth them up. Now they were ready to be painted.

Then I aplied black enamel paint to blacken their bodies. I tried one with black and one with gold coloured hair. I sticked with the gold. The tone difference between the black and gold is always quite apealing. Blackened and gilded bronzes are to be found in almost every antique shop or grand house.  My gueridons will not be real blackamoors in the sence that they are gold haired putti.

But where to go from here? The bases and the crowns and how I will make them will be shown in part 2. Be well and enjoy the summer!

Huibrecht

Home is where the heart(h) is; 1. A fireback project and some gilding

Hello my friends,

You have seen this lovely fireplace before but today's post is mainly about the chimneyplate or fireback that I have made. 

July is drawing to a close and it is mid summer in the northern hemisphere. The weather is warm and dry but thankfully not as dry as last year. And for some reason I am busy with my fireplace. Not really a summers project. :-) More on that later, first I want to Welcome Birgit as a new follower. Thank you for taking interest in my wanderings in the world of miniature.

Now, Mrs. M. Has pointed out some Etsy vendors in her blog and so I found these beautiful brass stampings which I ordered from Jewelsdumonde. Lovely frames that will be turned into miniatures. I got a few ideas for these but that is for another blogpost.

In the picture above you see a stamping shaped like a plaque. It depicts a woman carrying a wheat sheaf and a putti harvesting the wheat. It could be an alegory on the harvest or autumn. Perhaps even depict the goddes Ceres. But as soon as I saw it I thought "fire back"!

So as soon as my order arrived and I could find a free afternoon I started by cutting out a back for the plaque out of manilla card. Great stuff, tough but a also a bit tricky to cut out curves. And perhaps most important pretty water resistant so no problems with water based glues and paints. I cut out a backing for the plaque and a piece for the bottom. It now follows a classic shape for Dutch fire backs.

I assembled the three pieces and let the glue dry.

Once dried I painted them with black enamel paint two thin coats. It already looks quite good. But it is as yet too shiny. I added a bit of graphite/charcoal to matt the shine down a bit.

And here is the result. An elegant and decorative fire back.

I also found the time and courage to complete the gilded details on my marbled fireplace I made in the workshop of last march. In the picture above you see the unfinished gold details. I spilled a lot of gold paint outside the lines.

So after retouching the gold details I retouched the marbling. That was the most daunting part. But after enough trial and error I managed to mix the chrome white and ivory black in the right quantities. I am very pleased with the result.

That's it for now. I hope you have enjoyed this little post and wish you a very good day.

Until next time!

Huibrecht.

In front of the looking glass...

Those who have read the adventures of Alice will know... Weird things go on behind the looking glass. better stay in front of that thing...

Hello my friends, In this post I would like to share some of the miniatures that I have acquired from several sources. On the one hand it is great to find some great pieces that fit in my huis ter Swinnendael. On the other hand it is a stark reminder that I really need to start building. But soon there is progress to report on that account. :-)

First the looking glass

I love mirrors. And in miniature you can find lovely examples. From small and elegant to grand and ornate. This one from John Hodgson is cast in pewter. It is an elegant Georgian design. Contemporary with and similar to the Rococo mirrors on the continent. I found it on Etsy for a very reasonable price. The costs for postage from the US and customs almost doubled that so in the end could just have bought a new one from John Hodgson himself. ;-O

But I am still very happy with this mirror. It fits the Alison Davies fireplace that I marbled in the workshop of Simone van Kasbergen. A workshop she gives again prior to the Arnhem Dollshouseshow in september. I wholeheartedly can recommend it.

Lets stick with the shiny stuf.

Here you see a cast copper finial of the lid of a glass sugarbowl that had broken to pieces. The owner wanted to throw it all out when I asked If I could have the finial. She graciously gave it to me. Perhaps the fact that I did not break it helped a lot. :-) Years of cleaning rubbed off the silverplate in some places. I can have that replated someday. In style it is baroque rather than Rococo so it can pass as a Marot piece. Although it is a bit rough the shape and size are alright for 1:12. It could be a silver urn, a potpouri container or a silver teacaddy.

Not rough but delicate are the silver chocolate pot (above) and the ceremonial or dress sword (below). Both pieces are made by Jens Torp. I acquired them from the collection of Elly. Hot chocolate was still a very fashionable drink. And. Such an elegant container is just right for Lijsbeth Zonneschut when she craves for a cup of hot chocolate on a chilly winter morning. When the view on the gardens outside show little more than pale greys and frosty greens.

The Z of Zorro... I mean Zonneschut!

The dress sword or rapier by Jens Torp needs a sheath or scabbard to hold it. Thanks to Ilona from Minimumloon I now have an adress to source very fine leather. Once I have it I will make it. The steel sword with the silver handle is quite the ceremonial weapon for nobles and courtiers to wear up and into the 18th century. This fine example may be used by Carel Polyander when he was still in grace with the powers that be and Prince William V still had a court in The Hague.

A smoking gun.

Well perhaps not smoking... I bought this gun together with the mirror. I don't know who the maker is but it is nicely made. As opposed to the dress sword this single barrel is meant to be used. The park and farmlan of the Swinnendael estate is also used for the hunt. I plan to put a gun cupboard in the Rentmeesterskamer (Stewards room) and this is the first occupant. If I can find the correct hollow steel tube I want to try to make more rifles.

The hunter or the hunted?

And speaking of a hunt. The game and birds on the estate are not just there for show. So these pheasants and mallard are the result of the latest hunt. I bought these (Together with the Escutceon desk) also from Elly's collection. The birds have real eathers ont them. They will either go into the kitchen or the larder. Haven't decided on that yet. The scene in Huis Ter Swinnendael will be set in early summer. So having pheasants hung from the ceiling is not very logical but there it is. I still like them a lot.

Well thats it for now. No Wonderland behind the looking glass but som lovely miniatures in front of it. A little mini wonderland in the making. ;-0

I hope that you like this post and my new treasures. I wish you all good luck with your own projects! 

Till next time.

Huibrecht