Ever wanted to stand inside a historic Dollshouse? Now you can!

Hello my friends, 

Last week I attended a businessmeeting wich was held in the historical center of city of Utrecht. During our lunch break I walked over to the Centraal Museum in Utrecht where they display the oldest of all the remaining Dutch Cabinethouses still in (known) existence. The house of Petronella de la Court. 

I was not planning on entering the museum, since the second half of the course I attended was to begin soon. I only wanted to buy a new book that has been published concerning this cabinet house. "Een huyshouding in' t klein"  written by Margreet dan der Hut. 

To my surprise, the woman who helped me in the museum shop told me that they were dismantling the dollshouse, to put it in storage. They will renovate the museum building and therefor everything needs to be put away safely into the museum's depot. 

The video at the beginning of this post is a short stopmotion film where you can see some of the rooms being emptied of their miniature contents. 

I wanted to see a glimpse of the empty house and bought a museum ticket. Whenever will I get this chance again? unfortunately the curators were on a lunchbreak as well (which makes sense) so I could not talk to them and ask them a few questions. 

 Moving the house and its contents into the depot is quite a job, because the house consists of 1,500 parts. A miniature bookcase, a scaled violin, a few centimeter long waffle iron... you name it.

 Everything has to be filed, photographed, packed, and prepared for the move, piece by piece. So you see here the makeshift studio in the museum where they catalog and pack all the miniatures. 

 But what is all that talk about standing inside a dollshouse? Did I try to stick my feet into the empty rooms while noone was looking? Certainly not! But for the year that the renovation of the building is being carried out and the dollhouse of Petronella de la court is not on view, the museum has made a virtual tour of the house. See this link to the website with the virtual tour.

 You can "enter" every room and look around in 360 degrees. In some rooms there is extra information (look for the + symbols inside the room) on certain objects. in the 'Saletkamer'you can click on the music stand in the middel of the room. there you can listen to 5 short fragments of music. It is the music that is actualy written on the original mini music sheets you see in the room. they are played on original instuments. The music may, or not, be your taste but I think it is wonderful to know that the music sheets contain actual contemporary melodies and are not just decorative scribbles. But then again, if you see the details and objects petronella collected for her cabinet house, you really need not expect anything less than real sheet music. 

 I am happy that I could get a glimpse of the dollshouse being emptied and made ready for storage. And I love it that the Centraal Museum has made this video and virtual tour for us all to watch and enjoy! I hope that you will enjoy it as much as I do.

And with this post I will leave you for my summer break. My own move to our new house is coming closer every day. I hope to meet you all again here in september.

Huibrecht

Stringing venerable beads. A scalloped teatable and (even more) Gueridons.

Hello my friends, In light of the coming move I told my self to not buy any more miniatures until after we have unpacked and settled on the new adress. 

Be that as it may... Promises are easily made, but difficult to keep. So when I found a teatable with a scalloped shape, I fell in love with it. But there were several pieces of this item available, so there was no rush to buy one. So far so good. The next week I saw the number of items drop from 4 to 2.

Yikes! And after the weekend there was only one left. It is made/sold by Hungarianminiatures on Etsy. I do not know if they make miniatures in a small batch or if they keep replenishing sold out models. 

So just to be sure, I bought the last one. promise to self broken... But when it arrived, It really made me happy. It is very detailed and nicely made. Stylewise it will fit in Huis ter Swinnendael. If not a miniature copy of a period piece it will pass for a late 17th century model without a problem. Perhaps the legs are on the slim side for the period but that would be the only flaw. 

 In the same shop I also saw these lovely gueridons also named torchères. The difference between both names is mainly that a gueridon generally refers to a pedestal type of table, used to display items like art or porcelain. While torchères are only used to place candlesticks or candelabra's on. 

 If you have followed my blog for a bit you may know that I love gueridons. I have a pair made by John Hodgson and a pair that I 'cobbled' together myself. And now this pair of wooden gueridons. Both the table and the gueridons will get a place in Lady Zonneschuts dressingroom.

But I also found some time for stringing some beads. It is a little project that I started two years ago and packed away for the temporary move to our current place. And the irony is that I had forgotten all about it until I came across the little box and opened it before packing it for the upcoming move.......

It is intended to become a chandelier. I have seen so many lovely home made examples. Both by professional miniaturists as home made that I wanted to  try to make one myself. 

I have spotted some flaws in my original plan. The weight of the small beads is not enough to let them hang in a nice arc. And both of the horizontal rings are not connected so the frame is not fixed (yet). Lets see how it works out. But perhaps I will undo it and remake it around a shop bought chandelier. Stringing the beads in the right order has been quite relaxing in itself though. :-) 

Well, that is it for now I'am afraid. I hope you enjoyed reading this post just as I did writing it. Take care, stay healthy and enjoy the summer. 

Huibrecht 

Tales of the bees and flowers and candles

Hello my friends,

Last year I showed you the two beehives that I made using string and thread. Here and here 

With the move to our new house coming closer each week most of my miniatures and craft supplies are already packed and waiting. But not everything is packed yet. I wanted to add another type of beehive to my little collection.

A model with a flat top. A so called swarm seat. In Dutch we call them zwermzit. Used to attract swarms of bees when they migrate from the old hive to start a new one. All under the watchfull eye of Saint Ambrose. 

The sides of this new beehive taper slightly downwards. I dyed it for a longer time and in a different kind of tea than the other two hives. The colour of this new hive is noticably darker. 

I used the same method to make a flowerbasket. Usualy these are wickered, but I chose to make him the same way as the hives. With thread and string. After I finished the basket and the braided handle I soaked them in watered down red ink. No tea this time. It came out as I hoped. A good dark reddish pink hue. Not too bland, but not too saturated either. 

I tested it before, trying to dye the basket itself. Because trying to dye a testpiece in watered down green ink turned everything into a lilac! And that was certainly not the result I had aimed for. The purple string came from the jar with the green ink! 

But back to the flower baskey. I glued the coloured basket and handle together and that makes a flowerbasket. For the pictures I wanted to put some tulips inside the basket. Tulips that are  beautifully and most expertly made by Ilona. But you may have guessed that they are already packed and I cant find them in the boxes that I can reach. 

This means that I have to make some flowers myself. With the few materials I can use I brushed some inks on thin packing paper used for packing glasware and such. 

Then I cut out leaves and petals and glued them on paper covered wire. I glued 6 petals to form the flower heads. And two leaves on each stem. And that makes a few makeshift miniature tulips to fill the basket with. They are crudely made however, and will be replaced by better examples as soon as possible. All under the watchful eye of Ambrose. 

Now that covers the birds and the bees, but what about the candles? Did I make any? No I have not, although I want to try to make miniature candles one day. 

Last year I gave a fellow miniatures enthusiast legal advise. Helping a friend meant that I did not want to charge for the advice. My friend insisted however on some form of payment and offered me to choose a miniature out of a selection  shown. How could I refuse? 

I chose one of the two brass chandeliers that were part of this selection. In Dutch they are called "bolkroon(luchter)". Literaly translated you get in english the word "sphere/ball crown (chandelier)" you only have to look at them to understand why they have this name. It is derived from the large brass "bol" just above the ring on the lower end of the chandelier.  This type of chandelier can still often be seen in listed buildings and old churches in the Netherlands. 

Perhaps my friend thought me too modest, or is simply too kind, because my friend gave me the second chandelier too. Making the remark that my house will be big enough to find room for both pieces. I am realy very grateful for this gift. 

I am overjoyed with these two artisan miniatures. I am told that they are made by Alec Rothwell. A miniaturist that no longer makes miniatures but specialised in metal work. And his lamps, fireplace fenders and firebaskets can still be found on ebay for example. 

These chandeliers are not electrified and have little plastic "beeswax" candles in them. I think that I will keep them this way. The one with five candles will definately go into the stewards office. The one with ten candles may end up in the hall or in the chapel in the attic. Not sure yet. 

Well that is it for now. I hope that you have enjoyed this post. 

Huibrecht