17th Century Kitchen roombox (1)

For the first half of this year I have been busy working on a 17th century kitchen roombox. The kitchen was designed to look like the real 17th century Dutch kitchens did, but also had to have the look of the kitchens in the 17th and 18th century Dutch dolls houses.




I made the roombox for Mr. Emiel Aardewerk, an antiques dealer who specializes in Dutch silver and miniature silver. At the moment the roombox is on show, filled with gorgeous 17th and 18th century silver miniatures, at the PAN Amsterdam National Art and Antiques Fair.




The miniatures in these photos are my own, not antique ones. I made the kitchen cabinets from lovely mahogany, although that can't be seen anymore. The kitchen has been slightly aged as if it has had a few centuries of use. It was quite hard to put some grime on crisp clean grouts and freshly painted cabinets, but I do like the result!




The tiles on the wall are copies of traditional Dutch tiles called 'witjes' (little whites) which in fact aren't white at all but are slightly tinted with red, green, blue, yellow etc. The other tiles of course are Delft blue. The floor and worktop are painted to look like marble. Floor and wall tiles were made from acid free paper.