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