To gild the Lily

Hello my friends, 

My last post of this year is about gilding. To gild the lily means “to add unnecessary ornamentation to something beautiful in its own right.” This little frame may not need goldeaf applied to it, but I decided to do so none the less. :-) just some harmless unnecessary ornamentation... In the picture below you can see the frame in its original state. 

There are more blogs where this process is shown and on Youtube Josje has a series of 3 short video's where she explains the process in English very clearly. (the link brings you to the first of the three video's.) So I will only tell about the gilding process itself in broad strokes.  please watch these or other tutorial (video's) if you want to try applying goldleaf yourself. With a little practice it really is not that difficult!

The portrait above is of 'Lilly' Liliane Zonneschut. An imaginary ancestor of Sir Carel Polyander Zonneschut. I can't find where I got the picture of the portrait from, so I can not say who really made the portrait of this young woman in a blue dress posing as Artemis, Greek Goddes of the hunt. You have seen this portrait before on my blog. Last year to showcase the silvery frame and last week she  peeked around the corner in my short Christmas post. 

The frame surrounding Liliane is a little silver plated frame that mimics the sometimes heavily carved 17th century baroque frames. But to really mimic it, it had to be a gilded frame. 

Up to now I used gold paint to add some luster to a miniature. Gold paint works well on several occasions, but sometimes goldleaf is just better/prettier. My partner gave me a starterset for gilding for my birthday this year and I really wanted to try it before the year was over. 

After cleaning and degreassing the surfaces to gilt, I added the red coloured goldsise. the colour mimics that of Bole clay that was originaly used. the deep red shines (very delicately) through the slightly translucent gold leaf and enriches the colour of the endresult. I have read that the hue of the gold is different when you use a white, or green or other undercoat. Red is said to give the most satisfying result, and I believe them. because this is not real gold leaf but gold coloured leaf metal (I will buy the real stuff once I am trough the leaves that come with the starter kit) I had to apply a coat of fixative which works like a varnish to protect the leafmetal from corroding over time. 

Next it was Liliane her turn to get a little makeover. Unfortunately I do not recall where I found this picture, but I love this young girl in her pale blue satin dress, posing as the goddess of the hunt. She looks no older than 14 or 15 years but her expression shows a great self awarenss. The real lady was probably not a push over, and rightly so! To fit in the frame, however, I had to cut away the greyhound on the right, which is a shame, but oh well, it is what it is. 

To give this print more the resemblance of an oilpainting I tried two different methods I have read about online and in dollshouse magazine articles. First method was using Modge Podge or woodglue. Apply a thin layer on the print and use a brush to dabb and swirl to create the illusion of brushstrokes. The sheen of the translucent dried glue would give the appearance of old varnish. 

I do not have Modge Podge so I resorted to using woodglue. The result above was not satisfying. The transparency workes well but the bubbles and the blodges look appalling. I may have used too much glue. I will try again with less glue to see how that goes.

But first I tried using gloss varnish. First I added a thin and even layer on the print. When that had dried I added a second and thicker layer and used the brush to dabb and push it around over the portrait. This dried up in the way you can see in the picture above. I really like the result. Unless the second try with woodglue wins me over, this will be my method for working over prints of paintings.

I am very happy with the result. I already have more projects in mind to gild. The gold paint on the putti candlestands or gueridons I have made would look better when properly gilded. Don't you think? But that is a project for 2022.

I wish you all a good Newyear my friends. May 2022 bring health and good fortune to you all!

Huibrecht

  

Merry Christmas 2021

Hello my friends, 

This year is almost at an end. How it has flown by! You may have noticed that after the move to our new house the frequency of posts here have dropped considerably. These past few months have been busier than the rest of an already busy year. 

Since the move mid october I have had only 1 afternoon where I could work on miniatures in my new craft room. So apart from visiting the dollshouses in the museum in Lier and the miniatures show in Rijswijk, my hobby has virtualy been in a standstill. 

But no reason to moan about the recent mini time shortage. A new year is approaching and I have a lot of ideas for Huis ter Swinnendael. 

But back to Christmas. At blogspot, Facebook and Instagram I see a lot of your beautiful and spectacular mini rooms and houses with Christmas decorations. 

At the moment I still have only a mini nativity scène of tiny carved pieces of white marble in a basalt pyramid. So I made a small scène in the picture above. Having to do without a Christmas angel I have hercules to keep a protectie eye on the mini manger. For next year I want to make some garlands and ribbons and such in order to properly decorate at least one room for Christmas. 

But for now I wish you all a merry and festive Christmas! May you all have a wonderful time together with your loved ones! 

Huibrecht 

A dollshouse exhibition in De Lier

 

Hello my friends,

The picture above is the first class staircase of the Titanic, made by Cees van der Weide. unfortunately it is not mine. ;-).  knowing what happened to that ship in april 1912 this 'empty' roombox has an eerie feel to it. You can imagine everybody being on deck after the ship had hit an iceberg. To me it shows a silent scene before the realisation had et in to the people looking at the iceberg dissapearing in the darkness of the night, and the sailors and stewards running around, that the ship had already started to sink. 

Why show this beautiful roombox? Last saturday I went to a small town called De Lier. It is a half hour drive away from my new home. (coïncidentally also a half hour drive from my last house.) 

I read in a dollshouse magazine that in museum 'De Timmerwerf' in De Lier, the former carpenters workshop that was in business from early the 17th century up to 1996(!) there was a temporary exhibition of dollshouses and rooms in miniature.

So Naturaly I wanted to take a peak. Although the museum is not that large, the exhibition showed a lot of houses , roomboxes and vignettes. It was a lovely display of the ingenuity and variety that miniaturists show in their work. So many different subjects, styles and ages were shown there.

For me it was  very inspirational to visit this exhibition. Below I show you only a few of the many items on show.

Here you see cells and the 'interrogation room' of De Gevangenpoort, an ancient prison a gatehouse which is now a museum in The Hague. One of the other historic interiors showed this lovely 17th century style kitchen. Great stuff for inspiration of the kitchens in Huis ter Swinnendael. 

But also modern interiors like the Roombox and the house in the next two pictures. Much of what you see here is hand made from scratch! I could show you much more if only my pictures were any good! but these two give a good idea of the quality shown.

None of the houses and interiors were made for commercial purposes. These are all prised possessions of crafters and collectors of miniatures like you and me. The exhibition really showed that us miniaturists don't just make the same stuf in 100 variations. The people who assembled the exhibition really have an eye to combine so many different thems without it becoming a circus. It was quite tasteful indeed. 

 There were also several items with am exotic touch like this Japanese restaurant. Unfortunately my picture of the Chinese antique dealer (different maker) was blurred because that was a roombox where you kept descovering new treasures when you thought you had seen it all. 

The picture above and the picture below show a nice contrast. the contrast between a classic interior that could be the music room of a "snob", complete with a buste of Queen Victoria and a potrait of Queen Sophie of the Netherlands (first wife of King William III). And on the other hand the possible mess wherin a "slob" spends his or her days. The last room shows a level of distressing and aging I have not yet dared to try myself.

And last but not least there were also some lovely little scenes with miniatures with this 'painters bike and an old chest filled with books. 

You can imagine my friends that I enjoyed myself thoroughly while watching this exhibition. And although it is a small museum it was filled with people who came for the museum itself and the exhibition. Nice to see so much interest in the work of local miniaturists and collectors!

Huibrecht

Treasures from the Rijswijk dollshouse fair

Hello my dear friends,

Last sunday I went to a miniatures and dollshouse fair in the city of Rijswijk. The first fair for me since the Netherlands went in lockdown due to Covid-19 in march 2020. The first dollshouse fair in general was held  in the town of Houten laat month, but I had other obligations that weekend. So for me Rijswijk is the first since lockdown! It also is the first time I visited the dollshouse fair in Rijswijk. And I loved it.

The weekend prior to the lockdown in 2020 I had visited the last fair in Arnhem. If all goes well the first edition of that fair will be held next march. Fingers crossed. But back to Rijswijk!

When Sun of Nalladris published a picture of a monogrammed 5 piece silver cutlery set on facebook, I asked her if she would like to make those for me too. I need 10 sets for the diningroom of Huis ter Swinnendael. 

She agreed to make them. She has put my monogram (HD) on each fork, spoon, and knife. On all 50 pieces but only visible after magnification. :-) 

Because of the then impending move to our new house, I asked her to keep them until after the move. That way I would not risk losing them because they could not be packed together with the already packed miniatures. But now I could finally hold them in my own hands. Are they not pretty? 

Fun fact: 'my' cutlery was shown on the Dollshouse Nederland magazine. Not as my cutlery, but as decoration for a picknick basket. It was part of an article tutorial on how to make the picknick basket. This way I (and everybody else) could see them before I got them. It was great fun reading the article and knowing secretly that these would be mine soon. :-) 

But I also bought a few things that don't glitter. And they are not made of silver. You may remember these garden urns. They are among the first mini's that I made/ decorated myself in 2017. 

I wanted some trees or topiaries to go in the two on the left. And when seeing all the little trees and plants of Omgardens, I became interested in the little citrus trees they sell. The above picture is for reference. I asked her if she wants to make 2 trees that fit the size of these urns. She accepted and I will get the garden urns with the citrus trees back in march at the dollhouse show in Arnhem. I can't wait to see the result! 

Finaly I bought a vase from Jeffry of Jeffry's Miniatures. And a bust of Hercules. And finally a little garden statue of a putto. I really had to stop there, or I would have bought more! And my budget was already fully spent with these three. 

They are made of resin, and painted to a beautiful finish. And that is what sets these apart. The vase looks like weathered terracotta, and the bust and putto resemble stone. The base of the vase is missing a corner but that broken off corner adds to the realism (he also had a complete vase but I chose this one) of a delicate object. An object that was possibly made in Renaissance Italy and has already an age of almost 250 years in 1805 when we find it in Huis ter Swinnendael. 

Stella, of the Kleine Poppenkast, sells many lovely and wonderful miniatures. Some that I have never seen before were skulls of different animals and human skulls. They are not made of resin or plastic but cut individualy from hartshorn. 

The detailed carving is very good, and very reasonably priced. I bought a human skull for one of the reliquaries I plan on making. It will need some aging though, to pass as a 1000+ year old relic. :-) 

And finally also some wood and brass. The brass weights on the left might be a little large for 1:12 but after I cleaned them I will write their weight onto them. For that I weighed each one and multiplied that by 12 to see what they would roughly weigh in our size. 

Their real weight is not secure which tells me these are purely made for decorative purposes. I rounded off the outcome to workable numbers like 150 grams and 500 grams. So now I will have to make scales too when I start on the kitchen of Huis ter Swinnendael. 

The little turned wooden pieces are intended for several furniture projects that lurk in the background. The two spice mills are yet to recieve a destination. 

I also received a large gift from a good friend of mine. But that will have to wait for its own post in the near future. 

Until next time. 

Huibrecht 

Drawing fireplaces... and a give away for who answers the question correctly! 🥳

Hello my friends, 

If you follow my little blog you know by now that most things in my house are packed away. Waiting for the delayed move to our new house. Although I am happy to announce that 15 october wil finaly be the day!! But the mind is restless to a certain point. I can not just stop and put Huis ter Swinnendael out of my mind. It is almost a golem of my own making and will not just go away. 

My solution is to channel that energy into doing what little I can do. And also to not fall into a complete standstill. The situation has led me back to the drawing board. 

For instance I started to cut out shapes for the furniture to go into the miniature rooms that I am builing. This way I can play around with different configurations, just to see what fits best. And help me answer questions such as, should I include a bath or not? 

In the picture above you can see a printout of an over-elaborate parquet design that I might actually use for Lady Zonneschut's dressingroom. But then I will have to print it out twice as large as it is shown here.

On the floor plan of the dressingroom you can see 12 items of furniture. Only one(!) of them is finished at this moment. That is the House Of Miniatures (HOM) Queen Anne candlestand that I have decorated in Crimson & Cream. You can see it in the picture above. 

Three pieces of furniture will have to be made from scratch. (the eliptical wooden  bath tub and the wooden stool to go in it. And the little table used for lace making.) the lace making table is inspired by this picture. 

The little teatable (the rectangular piece of paper in the middle of the room) will be made by a very talented miniaturist. I have ordered that piece from Yosh Sagi. I will show and tell you all about it when it arrives. 

The rest (two rococo chairs, a dressingtable, a Q.A. side table, another Q.A. candlestand and a Q.A. polescreen) are either HOM or Alison Davies kits which I have lying around, waiting to be assembled after the move our new house.

So, still quite a lot to do but I have already gathered most supplies so as soon as I (finaly) can start, it should be a flying start! 

Apart from playing around with the dressingroom I have also drawn a design for the large fireplace in the future drawing room of Huis ter Swinnendael. Like the one in the steward's office it is a late renaissance model that was going out of fashion around 1675 when the house was built, but stil popular enough by patrons of the regent class to want to include it in a new house. Please note the sketchy 15cm (+/- 6 inch) high figure drawn on the far right for size comparison. The fireplace will have a height of 37 cm (+/- 15 inch) which means that the ceilingheight of the rooms on first floor will be nearly 4.5 meters. 

And speaking of the stewards office, in the picture above you can see the (final) design for the finished item and in the second picture you see the upper part that I have already made a while ago. Next will be the supports carrying it. These supports/pillasters will be the shaped like the one on the far right. The ones on the page on the left were rejected. 

And here you see some different  designs for a corner fireplace. They are based on designs in the style of Daniel Marot. The court architect of William & Mary. 

The (right half of the) one on the left is intended for Sir Zonneschut's library. The (right half of the)  drawing on the right is meant for Lady Zonneschut's dressingroom. The design in the middle did not make it into a room of the house. 

The picture below shows my ideas for the kitchen range. It will have three parts (cooking, roasting, baking) seperated by cut stone collumns that support the overhanging wooden chimney. 

 As I am writing this, it feels a bit desperate actually. 😬😁 But it really has helped me during this long wait where I could not realy make anything of the mini's I had already planned. And it has helped me to envision all the steps needed to make and finish the fireplaces that will become focal points in these rooms. Hopefully I will make less mistakes during the build this way. 

But drawing and ordering miniatures (kits) online is not all that I did. When I found a piece of acid free card board that was not yet packed away, I wasted little time to cut it up, to make a start on a few miniatures that I plan on making. 

How do you like this multi occupancy nesting box in the picture above? Or will it be something else? Yes, but what? That is the question. Care to guess? 

The first person to guess correctly, will receive one of the two miniature table theaters that I am currently making as well. It will come complete with a stageset. The pic below shows the rough first sketch of what I'm working on. You could say this is a home cinema set, 18th century style! :-) 

Let's hope that one of you guesses correctly. :-) and the winner can expect the prize to arrive before Christmas! 

Stay safe! 

Huibrecht 

Cunera Olshoorn; Remember this little girl?

Hello my friends,

In april 2021 I showed you the first stages of the portrait of Cunera Olshoorn that hangs in the (temprarily closed) Rotterdam Museum. Apart from being a beautiful painting (in my opninion.) it also happens to have a family connection to my partner. 

The painting of the miniature portrait had progressed in april to the stage in the picture below.

The original portrait was painted in 1683. At that time Cunera was only 2 years old. So the face is probably the only real thing from the girl in this composition. Posing for a painting is nigh impossible for a two year old. 

Portraying children with older bodies and/or unnatural (for their age) poses was not uncommon in that time. Symbolism was sometimes more important than realism. This picture, like many paintings and portraits of that era have multiple layers of meaning. 

Many items depicted in the painting are not just part of the pretty scenery. They have hidden meanings. The fact that she's seen descending a set of steps, holding flowering rose, having a dog accompanying her around her feet, and the blooming or wilted roses strewn around all have a symbolic meaning. 

These point to youth, fidelity, growing up, the fragility of health/life and the uncertainties of the future. A bit sombre when you think about it. Perhaps she was a sickly child or her parents lost some children/newborns before Cunera was born? Who knows. 

It seems as though the portrait is intended as  a celebration of a beautiful child, but at the same time a warning that good things should not be taken for granted. But thankfully she did not die in childhood like many did in thise days. We do know that Cunera made it into adulthood, got married and started her own family. 

And even in this childrens portrait the parents want to show that they were cultured and educated people. Although you may not recognise it, the statue on the right side of Cunera is modelled after the so called Flora Farnese. The goddes Flora in the famous Farnese marbles. One of the first grand renaissance collections of classical statuary.  Statues very well known in the 17th and 18th centuries. The original stands in Rome. The copy in this photo stands in the Parc de Tuilleries in Paris. 

But back to the miniature painting by Diane. In the pictures above you can see how the multiple (thin) layers of paint and colour have transformed the picture.

It is almost finished, but not entirely. After Diane has finished the painting, she will also make a frame for the painting. It will be based on the frame surrounding the original portrait.

Well that's it for now. Be safe. 

Huibrecht