Visiting grand houses: Two patrician houses in Dordrecht

Hello my friends,

If you are not new to my little blog you may know that I love to go to museums. For Huis ter Swinnendael I espescially like to visit period houses and castles for inspiration. 

A few weeks ago I had a course for work that would take me all day. When I arrived at the hotel where it would take place, I was told that I was a week early... The date had been pushed a week back but not all my calendars had synchronised so I turned up a week early. What to do? Drive home and miss half a workday? I decided to take the day off. I was close to the city of Dordrecht and there stands a museum still on my wishlist. 

Well they have several good museums but there is one I have not yet visited although I have been wanting to for several years now.

It is the house you see here. Originaly built by a member of the Trip family, famous for the Trippenhuis in Amsterdam, but with alterations in later centuries. For a long time it has been the mayoral residence of the city of Dordrecht. Today it is in private hands again. The owners turned it into a museum. And it is furnished as a patrician towns residence could have been in the late 18th century.

The museum is called "Het Dordts Patriciërs Huis" and in the vestibule, leading into the corridor running the whole lengte of the house, has the must have long case clock standing in it. Huis ter Swinnendael will also need one in the hall. 

Except fixed fixtures like the overmantle painting, no piece of furniture is original to the house. There simply wasn't any thing left. But the house is entirely furnished with art and antiques dating from the reign of Louis XVI. Everything is part of the private collection of the house owners. 

Apart from all the beautiful things to see in this house, it is perhaps even more astonishing that the owners turned this building into a privately owned  museum because the wanted to move into a house with a garden. Because it is better for Kids to have garden while growing up. (I kid you not, that is what the lucky owner actualy said! )  :-) 

But the 'piece the resistance' of this house is the round room added in the 18th century at the back of the building. 

As you may know, and I have said it before on my blog, symmetry was very important for facades and interior decor in those days. Just recall the fake visible door next to the real hidden door in one of the bedrooms in Huis van Loon in Amsterdam. Just so that on both sides of the same wall the door seemed to be in the middle of that wall! In the picture above they used a different solution. You see the two double doors on either side of the commode? The one on the right leads into the corridor, the one on the left is a built in cupboard. 

This neo classical room is pure Louis XVI without later additions or changes. And what also makes it special is that it has a circular floor plan. And a beautiful parquet floor! As far as we know it is the only circular room in a private residence of that era in the Netherlands. I love it! Could I add a circular room to Huis ter Swinnendael? 

And here, through the Windows you see the river Maas, with on the far right the river Waal which confluents with the Maas at Dordrecht. No wonder the family living here in the 18th century wanted to maximise the view by adding this room to their town house. In the picture below you can see  the view you would have of the house from the river. 

After this charming museum house I had a spot of lunch and revisited another museum house I already know well. That museum is called: Huis Simon van Geijn. 

Located a Stonesthrow (sort of) away from Het Dordts Patriciërshuis stands the house of the late banker and collector Simon van Gijn. He died at the Dawn of the 20th century and decreed in his last will that his house and collection should be preserved and opened to the public. 

Although some change and additions have been made, they added the house next door for example, it shows very well how a banker's private residence around 1900 would have looked like. 

Hang on, Huis ter Swinnendael is set around 1805. How can a house set a century later be an inspiration? That is a fair and good question. 

The answer is that Simon van Gijn was very fond of the 17th and the 18th century and collected many things from that era. And he had the receptionroom in the picture above and below preserved and restored to its original glory.  

The only non original feature in the room, accept for the modern museum lighting, is the cast iron insert in the fireplace. 

But do not think that every room was restored or remodeled in a historical fashion by the van Gijn's. this red salon, for example is the smaller front room modeld in the dominant fashion of the late nineteenth century. Rhis room was used as an anteroom to the diningroom that lies on the left of this picture. It certainly has a different look and feel than the first room which was used for large receptions and such.

Another special room is lady Van Gijn's bedroom on the second floor. It has an early velouté wallpaper (linnen painted white, with a pattern stenciled on it in dark green and partially filled in with pink and orange). This type of wallpaper was made primarily in the first half of the 18th century. The room also has a very ornate 17th century fireplace. Painted in a dark green and beige with the wood carvings highlighted in a silvery gray. To me personally this feels like a late 19th century colourscheme but nobody could tell me if these colours were original. they match beautifully though.

The magnificent original woodcarvings on the fireplace and the bed alcove, as well as the embossed and parcel gilt leather wall covering and the painted ceiling are a stunning example of a bedroom in a very wealthy household in the time of Rembrandt van Rijn. Everything in the room is original, but the room was never built for the house of Simon van Gijn. He bought the room in an auction. it came from a large house that was to be demolished so they could build a modern (late 19th century) building in its place. This fine interior was built into an existing room to display it. 

The third floor housed the servants and rooms like the washing attic. A room like this was needed in a house like this. Huis ter Swinnendael will get one naturally. A lot of interesting items can be gfound onm this floor. many of which are on my list to recreate in miniature. The only important thing for me is to check wether they already existed in 1805 or that they are newer. In that case I should not include them. My favorite item in this linnen room is not the linnen press or the mangle, but the washlist on the table to the right and leaning against the wall. It is painted black and on it is a list of items that were collected for laundry day. I want to include one of those in my llaudry attic as well, one day.

But there is more than a banker's home chokablock with antuique furniture and works of art. In the attic there is a large colection of antique toys on display. You may not expect it but Simon collected most of these toys himself. He and his wife had no children of their own and that gave them a lot of grief. To compensatie what they missed in life their nephews and nieces could visit and play with the toys as long as they were careful.  A surprising humane and gentle side perhaps of a man you could otherwise easily mistake for a stern scroogy sort of type. 

For me personaly the most interesting toy of his collection is the dollshouse of Agnes Maria Clifford (1739-1828) who collected the miniatures for this dollshouse and made all the soft furnishings you see here herself. One of the other jewels was the house in the picture below. Impressive house, but sadly it was not possible to see the interior of the house. Perhaps that can be arranged for a next visit to Dordrecht? Who knows. 

Take care, 

Huibrecht