Last week, the Rijksmuseum opened a new exhibition, At Home in the 17th Century, an immersive look on the domestic life of the Dutch Golden Age. It consists of nine diorama-style galleries designed by artist Steef de Jong that allow visitors to experience life in the 17th century home progressing from morning to night.
The exhibition zooms in on the lives of a variety of people, such as the Boudaen Courten family from Zeeland province. Many items belonging to members of this family have survived, including gilded furniture, portraits and one very remarkable relic: a bladder stone retrieved in a major medical procedure. All these objects will be on view together for the first time in centuries. We also take a peek into the world of the Utrecht artist Joachim Wtewael. In 1628 he painted a portrait of his daughter Eva, seated at a table that still exists. The painting presents Eva as the epitome of the ideal housewife, with a sewing cushion on her lap and a prayer book on the table. This vision of her future unfortunately never became reality. She died seven years after the completion of the painting and never married. The painting will be on show together with the table and the matching linen cupboard.
The exhibition takes a multifaceted look at how people lived in the 17th century. Together with Archeologie West-Friesland, the curators have studied the contents of the 17th-century cesspit at the home of the mayor of Hoorn and his family, the Soncks. The cookware, the crockery and the food waste tell us the story of what was on the family dining table, offering detailed insights into their eating habits. Cesspits found on Vlooienburg island in Amsterdam, by contrast, reveal that Portuguese immigrants to the city brought with them their own earthenware, and their own flavours.
The Doll’s House of Petronella Oortman is the centerpiece of the exhibition. Created in the late 17th century into the early 18th (ca. 1686 – ca. 1710), the doll’s house was not a toy or playhouse. It had tiny dolls in it, most of them now lost, alas, but they were not for kids to play pretend with. It was a meticulously rendered miniature version of a wealthy home of the period. Every possible detail was included, from sewing scissors to wallpaper to books of real music.
To celebrate this masterpiece of miniaturization, the museum has created a masterpiece of digital experience: an online tour of the house guided by the voice of Helena Bonham Carter. The online exhibition brings you inside every room of the doll’s house. It’s like Fantastic Voyage only you’ve been shrunk to fit into an elegant 17th century Dutch interior instead of the body of an injured scientist. The art on the walls, the wood paneling, the cane chairs, the cushions, the door knobs, the 1cm teacups, the porcelain spittoons on the floor next to the game table with a backgammon round in progress, the books, a curio cabinet full of tiny shells, the fruit on the kitchen counter, the fully-stocked cellar hidden in a drawer, baskets of peat briquets to burn for cooking and heating, a working threaded spinning wheel, monogrammed linen napkins, everything is jaw-droppingly realistic rendering in detail. You can’t even tell it’s miniaturized when you’re inside the house.
After the introduction, you can click on individual rooms to navigate, or you can play the whole tour and go along for the ride with Helena Bonham Carter as your guide. I highly recommend the latter, because the planned route is smartly laid out with a consistent through-line and clear transitions.
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