It is all silver that glitters! A Jens Torp workshop

Hello my friends,

The weekend after the Dollshouse Nederland Show in Arnhem I attended a silver workshop given by Jens Torp. During the three day long workshop we made silver covers for the front and back plates of a book made by Tine Krijnen. Below isva picture of the one Jens made as an example. Excuisite!

It was my first ever workshop on working with silver. I found it daunting but also very exciting to work with silver. 

It started simple enough. Two small plates of silver and a brass template. Our first job was to bend and fold 3 edges over the template. Thus creating a cover to slide on the book when finished. I messed up the first one. so I got a third plate to try again. Luckily number 2 and 3 turned out ok. So, after the necessary cutting, filing and bending I had two folded plates to work with.

Next came the soldering with silver. The corners had to be soldered shut and a short stub of silver thread had to be soldered on the long side. These would become part of the clasp later. I gave soldering a try but I could not make it work. Fortunately Jens was kind enough to help me so it turned out alright in the end. Well the soldering at least. The book covers were as yet nowhere near finished, but the first day of the workshop already drew to a close.

The second day started with designing the pattern for both covers. In its folded form the long side of both covers measure just 1 inch. (2,5 cm) This will give you an idea of how big, or rather small, the cover is. When I settled on a design for each cover it was time to draw them on the silver. I wanted a baroque design with curving vines and flowers. On the front a medallion is added which holds the coat of arms of the Zonneschut family. 

It took me a long time to decide which designs to use. But then I could finally start opening up the little silver plates. You start by drilling holes where the silver needs to be removed. Insert the thread of the jewelers fretsaw and cut out the unwanted piece. And then you go on to the next, and the next, and the next... and so on and so forth. 

When working on such a small surface with nothing but curvy lines it takes a very long time before you have finished one side. And even longer for both sides. Because the silver is thin and not as hard as brass, cutting around end pieces means that you have to saw carefully and slowly. You do not want to bend the material or damage it in any other way. So you cannot rush this stage.

When the sawing on both of my pieces was (finally) finished, the third day had already started! Now it was time for me to engrave the lines of pettals and such. This gives the design detail and depth. Great to do but hard to master. Making curved lines has been very hard to do. Stil I have a lot to practice before I have mastered this.

But if you think that was tough to do... We then had to cut away the middle section of the silver bars on the covers. Jens provided us with a ready made clasp that should go between these. But to turn this into a hinge, meant drilling through the little round bars so a thread could be pulled through. This meant drilling with a drill measuring 0.6 mm in diameter.... 

Luckily, Jens helped the faint of hearts... I was one of those. I am bad at drilling straight. and the margin of error is extremely small here. Next time I must try it myself, just like I will try my hand at soldering again. I must be able to master it in the near future. 

And here you can see the holes cut by Jens, turning the small silver bars into hinges. Silver thread was threaded through them and tapped with a jewelers hammer to flatten and broaden the ends so they can not fall out of the hinge.

The last task that remained now was to add a pearl trim around the decorations and polish the silver. Smoothing away the rough edges and make the silver shine again. However, I had run out of time!

Luckily, Jens wanted to help me out by adding the pearl trim. This was the third time he helped me out! I would find a way to polish the silver myself. There must be a jeweler in my area that would help me out. A friend of mine, who also attended the class, stayed the evening there and would take my bookplates home with him. We would then meet up later in the month to hand them over. 

We did so while visiting Slot Zuylen, a castle near the city of Utrecht. I will show you its lovely interiors in a next post.  And finally the book and the silver covers are united. 

I love the result! I am very happy with them although there are a few mistakes made that remain visible. It is my first miniature silver piece. Handmade by me and aided by Jens Torp. I can assure you that it will not be my last! Hopefully next year there will be another miniature silver workshop. 

There is even video footage of the workshop itself on YouTube! Josje (Make Miniatures With Josje) attended the workshop as well and made a nifty bookcover herself. You can see her vlog about the workshop here. I even have a little guest role in it! 🤭

I talked with her about a mistake I had made while engraving, unoblibious that she was shooting footage for this episode at that moment. So, if you want to hear my voice, here is your chance. 😅

Well, that is all for now. Stay safe and until my next post. 

Huibrecht 

Treasures from the 2022 Arnhem fair

Hello my friends,

In my last post, about the book chest of Hugo Grotius, I told you that it was my star buy of the DHN show. The dollshouse fair in Arnhem. It was the first show since march 2020 due to Covid. But you may have guessed that it was not my only purchase.

I splashed out on this little table! It is made by Yosh Sagi who is a superb craftsman. A true collectible. Every joint is dovetailed and the parquetry veneer is faultles. Yosh told me that the carcass of the table is made of cherry wood. Pear wood, palisander and sycamore were used for the parquetry. With the pear being the lightest, and the sycamore the darkest of the three.

From Elisabeth Elsner von Gronow I bought this collection of Dresden paper. The big squares can be broken up in small triangles and used in different ways. Dresden paper is very detailed, and the fact that it is paper makes it pliable and easy around corners. I have seen them used to form or enhance frames around painings and mirrors. But also as stucco or caring on wooden panels. 

I want to use most of these for the decorative Rococo plaster trim on and around the stucco ceiling of the small salon.

This book was bought prior to the show. But I did not yet show it to you before so I decided to do so now. The book is made by Tine Krijnen in cooperation with Jens Torp who supplies the intricate lock for these. 

New for me was Miniatures by Vio. They sell laser cut sets. A lot of different designs to choose from. They have a lot of art nouveau designs and some mid century furniture too. And a large array of gothic windows to choose from.  Most stuff is too modern for my projects, but nicely designed and made.  

I chose two stools that do fit my chosen era. One for downstairs and one for upstairs. I will probably not use the wavy gold trim supplied with the kit for the 19th century footstool. I think that is a bit too big and coarse. But the design is similar to several renaissance stools I have seen and not typically 19th century in style.

Next is a painting of Maria de' Medici as a little girl. Daughter of Cosimo I, grand duke of Tuscany. The original was painted in 1553 by Agnolo Bronzino. She is not thé Maria de Medici that would become the Queen of France as wife of Henri IV. Thát Maria was born in 1573, 20 years after this portrait was painted. 

This Maria was the aunt of the  future queen of France. She was engaged to Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, but died at the age of seventeen, before the marriage could take place. It was usual to commission copies of portraits of members of ruling families to hang them in their several palaces or to send to allied families as gifts. Or to present children to other families as mariage candidates...

Carel Polyander, or one of his ancesters who also had undertaken a 'grand tour' to Italy, could have bought it in Ferrara. Since she never married the Ferraran duke (he got Lucrezia de Medici, a younger sister of Maria instead) this copy was of little importance to a Ferraran aritocrate to have on his wall. And that may be why this Italian portrait found its way to a large Dutch country house. But now back to the miniature. itself

This miniature version was painted by Atelier Valckenier. I love this portrait. I do not feel that the plastic frame befits this portrait. It simply does not do it justice. stylistically the frame is of a different period and too modern. I will replace this some day with a frame in the renaissance style. Luckily the existing frame can be removed easily without any danger for damaging the painting. 

And last but not least, Hugo Grotius' book chest made by Hetty Fromme. But you can (or have) read all about that in my previous post dedicated to this piece and the history attached to it. 

So my friends, that's it for now. My assembled treasures from Arnhem. From now on the Show will only be once a year. A pitty on one hand, but on the other hand that gives me double the time to save up for it!  ;-)

Huibrecht 

A very special chest of books

Hello my friends,

The miniature chest in this picture above is connected to the man in the engraving below. Apart from being a very pretty and well made miniature it is my best buy of the DHN fair in Arnhem last week.  But why do I want this chest in my collection, and who is that man from yesteryear?

Why? Because this miniature chest is a 1:12 copy of the chest that stands in the Rijksmuseum. And that chest was allegedly used by Hugo de Groot (Grotius) to escape from his prison in Loevestein castle in 1621!

I'll tell you more about the escape later but first, who was Hugo? Well, being a Master of laws myself, he's one of my "legal heroes".  But that tells you nothing, does it? So here a (very) brief description of the man himself and some of his work.

Perhaps Hugo's most important feat is that he laid the foundations for international law as it is today. Two of te books he wrote have had a lasting impact in the field of international law: De jure belli ac pacis [On the Law of War and Peace] which he dedicated to Louis XIII of France.

And the other one is Mare Liberum [The Free Seas]. Just think of the concept of "international waters" Hugo was the first to lay that down in writing! With his books he has also contributed to the evolution of the notion of rights. Before him, rights were above all perceived as attached to objects; after him, they are seen as belonging to persons, as the expression of an ability to act or as a means of realizing something. And now, on to the man himself. 

So,he is a great chap and all that. Why should he escape from prison in a chest, and why was he in prison in the first place? Well, that is quite a long story. Here comes the short version.

He was the victim of a political struggle between Prince Maurits (yep  the guy on the left Delft tile tableau I made in miniature) who more or less ruled the republic as a commander in chief at that time, and Johan Van Oldenbarnevelt (call him the prime minister). Grotius worked closely with Van Oldenbarnevelt and when the first was beheaded in 1619, his situation became precarious. At the same time there was an ongoing religious dispute within the Netherlands about protestantism. Should the two main streams in the Netherlands, the Arminians and the Calvinists be tollerant of eachother differences? Or was there only one true way to be a protestant? And thus all the rest heresy? Grotius pleaded tollerance, while Maurits had sided firmly with the Calvinists. 

The result of all this? He was locked up at Loevestein castle as a political prisoner. Waiting for the moment that prince Maurits would decide on Grotius' fate. Because Hugo was a gentleman and scholar he was allowed certain privileges. His wife was allowed to visit him and he could read books and continue his writing. This meant that at regular intervals a chest was delivered and taken away. A heavy chest because it was filled with books he wanted to read or use. For he was allowed to continue his scholarly work in prison. 

Despite this mild prison regime he did not trust the Prince and his entourage to let him go any time soon. Or even, to let him live out his life to the end of his days, for that matter. Maurits an Van Oldenbarnevelt had been friends and close allies for years. But that had not saved Van Oldebarnevelt to loose his head on the chopping block two years earlier. 

Hugo stepping in the chest (with a rounded lid)... 

You probably have figured out by now how this story ends. After a while the model prisoner was not deemed a flight risk and they got bored checking the books in the chest... 

Is this chest heavier than usual or what?...

He and his wife hatched a plan to break him out of his prison. but how does one go about these things? With patience and careful planning they worked out a plan. In 1621, with the help of his wife and his maidservant, Grotius managed to escape the castle in the chest and fled to Paris. (That is why his "Rights of war and peace" is dedicated to Louis XIII and not Maurits)

...and Hugo stepping out of it (with a flat lid)...

The engravers all show different chests. Which is okay because they do not pretend to be historically acurate. They just depict a key moment in the story. But here's another fun fact. There are three chests in existence in which Hugo would have escaped his prison.

Besides Loevestein castle, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and even the museum Het Prinsenhof in Delft claim to have the original book chest in their collection!

Wow, 3 chests. Which one will be the 'real McCoy'? Believe it or not, but a Dutch television program has had different researchers inspect these chests a few years ago to find out which of the three is probably the best candidate. And with a sense of drama all three chests were brought together.

The result? The tree that supplied the wood used in the Loevestein chest was chopped down some years after 1621. So that's not the one. The Rijksmuseum chest and the Prinsenhof chest were old enough to be in use in 1621. The Rijksmuseum chest is much longer than the other one and would be hard neigh impossible to be carried by two men when filled with books or an escapee. 

So the conclusion of the historians and scientists involved was that the Prinsenhof chest is the most likely candidate. Although there simply can't be a 100% certainty. However, the result of this program does not make me want this miniature chest any less. Now lets have closer look at this miniature. 

Hetty Fromme is a miniaturist who took the Rijksmuseum chest as her subject to miniaturise. She got permission of the Rijksmuseum to take detailed pictures inside and out. From those she drew the exact shapes of all te remaining bits of leather and metal hardware to recreate in miniature.  As you can see in the picture below.

The metal straps, locks and hinges are made of real metal. Distressed and aged to resemble their 1:1 counterparts. The plans of this chest were featured in the  Dollshouse Nederland magazine in 2009. 

But here the metal parts were replaced by cardboard. A logical step because few people can work with metal. Me neither. But now I do not have to try and make it, I have got the original right here!

I had plans to make this chest from the plans in DHN. Because of my great interest in Hugo Grotius. But then I heard that the chief editor of DHN had the original chest made by Hetty Fromme. And I heard that news because she, the chief editor, was making plans to slim down her collection and was kind enough to tell me in person when I happened to speak to her. Yes my dear friends, as soon as I learned this unique chest was coming "on the market" I wanted to procure this piece for myself. She was happy to sell it to me at an agreed price. So the chest was sold before the other pieces came to Arnhem to be sold. 

As a chest it fits right into Huis ter Swinnendael. As a replica of the presumed chest in which Hugo Grotius may or may not have escaped Loevestein Castle. It has a greater value to me than any other chest. 

But aside from that, the attention to detail of Hetty Fromme and the research she has done on it makes it even more special. Every bit of metal was measured and reproduced as good as possible. Even the tarnished and stained cloth lining on the interior was recreated as close to the original as possible. Even the underside of the chest is not just a flat piece of wood as you cab see in the last picture of this post below here. 

I can only repeat myself when I say that I am over the moon with this miniature chest. I'm positively enamored with it.  Now i only have to fill it with a bunch of books. ;-)

Huibrecht