Furniture: Lady Zonneschut loves crimson & cream

Hello my friends,

A while ago I showed you this small winetable and this House of Miniatures candlestand. The first I decorated in cream with crimson details, the second in crimson with details in cream. I really like the effect of the combination of these colours. And I believe it will combine nicely with the green of the walls in the dressingroom. Therefore I want to use it on more furniture pieces for Lady Zonneschut's dressingroom. First I want to tell you a bit about the inspiration that  influence my furniture colour choices. Then I will show you the making of this set.

In the Netherlands in the 17th century unity of colour and fabrics was seen as very fashionable and desirable. To have all upholstery, curtains, bed hangings and wall hangings in the room of the same fabric and colour was deemed the pinnacle  of wealth and good taste. It goes without saying that only one or a few rooms in grand houses had these costly treatments. 

From the second half of the 18th century these rules became much more relaxed. From the rococo/Louis XV onwards a tasteful combination of different but matching colours and fabrics became the fashion. A nice example is the boudoir in the picture below.

In Huis ter Swinnendael there is a mix of styles and colours. In the dressingroom the panneling is sage green and the fabrics used (so far) is a mustard yellow. The usual colour for the furniture would therefore be yellow or green. But, I really like the combination of cream and crimson. And I believe it will combine nicely with the green of the walls. Therefor I want to add more Crimson & Cream pieces to Lady Zonneschut's dressingroom. 

I like to believe that these pieces are favorites of Belle Zonneschut which stood in her appartment in their town house in The Hague. With the 'voluntary' exile of the Zonneschuts to their country estate due to the Batavian Revolution (the Zonneschuts support the house of Orange in excile and therefore stand on the "wrong side" in this revolutionairy period) , Belle could well have her favorite pieces sent over from the town house in The Hague to Huis ter Swinnendael. Resulting in the amalgam of different pieces in her dressingroom. 

To furnish the room I collected a few more House of Miniatures kits. I now have started with assembling them. I started with a Queen Annne fire screen and a candlestand matching the candlestand I have already decorated. This way I turn them into a matching set of three pieces. 

I also bought a Queen Anne side table, a Queen Anne tea table and a Chippendale lowboy. I have been assembling the side table but I was not sure yet if I would add it to the crimson and cream set. The lowboy will not be assembled as the kit is intended. I will chop it up and use the parts to make dressing table in the style of a Mazarin desk. But that is for another post. 

Sanding the cabriole legs of the side tabe round and glueing the pieces together was straight forward enough. To make the holes for the drawer pulls I pushed some dressing pins through the soft wood.

 I wanted to stain the side table in a mahogany colour. But since I accidentally broke a table leg while cleaning the room, It was an ugly repair that would always show when merley stained. That is why I decided to paint the side table in the same colour scheme. So the Crimson & Cream set got a little bit bigger. 

But I will not paint all the furniture intended for Lady Zonneschut's dressingroom in crimson & cream. That would hardly be realistic. Even though it would look good in my opinion. Huis ter Swinnendael may be a wealthy gentleman's home, but it is not a royal palace where money is no objection (just raise the taxes!). So this room, as well as the other rooms will be furnished with pieces in a combination of different styles and finishes. Collected over several generations of Zonneschuts.

But returning to the furniture at hand. I painted the new pieces crimson. Then came the hard part. The decorations in cream. To that end I added a little cadmium yellow to titanium white until I had a soft creamy colour that matches the cream colour on the original candle stand. 

First I retouched the original piece in some places to enhance the decoration. Then I copied that on the second candle stand. Now it was time to decorate the fire screen. The legs and the bottom half of the pole of this fire screen are the same as on the candle stands so I decorated those in the same way.  

I was tempted to add an escutcheon with a family crest onto it, but I decided to leave the central panel open. I did add a shell-like motive in the corners of the screen.

The fire screen and the candle stands have the same construction for the feet and share the same decoration on those. These pieces differ on the top half. not only by their construction and purpose but also the way in which the edges are cut. Where the edge on the candle stands are hollowed out,  the edge on the fire screen are rounded off. Therefore I did not gave it the same edge decoration as on the candle stands.  

The table top at last, got a decoration on the border similar to the fire screen and a simple division into different panels with thin lines in cream. This way all pieces share some of the ornaments used which helps to tie it together into a set. I did not add a decoration into the panels  on the tabletop. It is my intention to place different items onto the table and they would obscure a decoration from view. 

But the table and fire screen did not fit into the set as intended. I realised that the hollow edge on the front of drawer should be similarly decorated as the one on the candlestands. So I made some more cream cololoured paint and added these. I also added a cream line along the outer edge of the table top and the fire screen. please compare the two pictures above.To me they now look much better and more as one set of furniture pieces.

Then all that was needed was to push the handles through the escutcheons and into the holes before bendimg them flat. Now the drawer has handles.

Here you can see the four pieces together. The bright red of the crimson will be subdued and darkened a tiny bit when I varnish the pieces. 

Now the most important pieces for this room are ready. Although I am quite happy with how this set turned out. I have to admit that this is not by best brushwork. Not by far. The lines  almost never run straight where they are supposed to. Oh well. I believe it is not out of place. 

What is next for this room? A chaise longue and a dressingtable will follow soon. They will however not be part of the Crimson & Cream set. 

Have a great day.

Huibrecht