17th Century Kitchen roombox (2)

The 17th century kitchen roombox was designed to display silver miniatures from the 17th and 18th century. These miniatures were originally collected by wealthy Dutch women who kept a dolls house. The dolls house (cabinet) was not a toy, but a prize exhibit which its owner would show off to visitors. An expensive hobby even in those days, as some dolls houses would cost as much as a modest full scale canalside house in Amsterdam.

To enable better a view of the silver miniatures in the roombox, I made the front half of the ceiling out of glass.




The hollow beams in the ceiling hide light fixtures. As the roombox has to be on display without access to a power outlet, the lights run on heavy batteries which are hidden in the chimney breast. At the back of the roombox there is a little lid door which gives access to the batteries and the light switch.




On the right side of the roombox I made a large corner cabinet to hold more silver miniatures. The lovely gateleg table was made to my specifications by Colin Bird.



Just as I mentioned in my previous post, the miniatures in the photos are not the antique miniatures, but my own modern day ones.




The photo below shows an article which was published in the December 2010 issue of Dolls House Nederland, in which you can see the roombox filled with the real 17th and 18th century silver miniatures.
The last two photos show some of the silver miniatures in more detail. The colour of the cabinets is a bit off in these photos, it should be like in the photos above.