...or: How to have a wonderful day even though your feet are killing you.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to listen to a lecture given by two of the Rijksmuseum's art restorers. Head of the restoration department Paul van Duin and junior paintings restorer Lisette Vos talked about the restoration of the Beuning room, a Cuba mahogany Dutch Rococo room made for merchant Matthias Beuning in 1748.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to listen to a lecture given by two of the Rijksmuseum's art restorers. Head of the restoration department Paul van Duin and junior paintings restorer Lisette Vos talked about the restoration of the Beuning room, a Cuba mahogany Dutch Rococo room made for merchant Matthias Beuning in 1748.
As the Beuning room originally came from the Amsterdam canal house at Keizersgracht 187, and many elements in my first 12th scale canal house are based on an Amsterdam canal house in the Dutch Rococo style, you can understand why I was interested in going to this lecture.
It could be a room in a dolls house, don't you think? Granted, a very beautiful one, but still...
In reality this room is quite big. To give you an impression of scale, that is my reflection in the mirror (with heels I am 6 feet tall). But then again, as we all know ' objects in mirror are closer than they appear'. ;-)
I really enjoyed hearing about the restoration of this room. The restoration of the ceiling and the choices they made in the way the room is displayed had my particular interest as this is information you don't normally have access to when visiting a museum.
It was interesting for me to find how much knowledge I had already, just from doing research for my dolls house!
I spent the rest of the afternoon browsing some of the galleries at the Rijksmuseum. As you may know, the museum opened last Saturday, after a remodeling job which lasted ten (!!!) years. The new entrance is a beautiful, light and spacious Atrium which I really liked as a contrast to the more intimate feel of the galleries.
However, to the new visitor who doesn't know the museum (which will be thousands a day, as many visitors are tourists) it was a bit of a mystery how to get from one side of the museum to the other. I tried to get to the 18th century galleries from the entrance and needed directions 4 times and got stopped and sent back by security guards three times for trying to enter part of the museum from the Atrium. Beautiful as the Atrium is, it was very confusing to be able to walk from the galleries into the Atrium, only to find out you had then actually left the museum. I think the Rijks has to schedule in a few more meetings in order to solve this ;-)
Anyway, once I arrived at the 18th century gallery, I found this miniature related piece I would like to show you here. It is a ' Simpliciakast' or Collectors cabinet from 1730 which holds all kinds of medicinal ingredients, as well as minerals, fossils, wood samples, seeds, etc.
It has still has the original 92 Delft faience pots, 148 glass bottles and 61 wooden barrels. So beautiful!
I loved the small painted panels with the ivory columns on the inside of the doors.
In another gallery I found the collection of silver miniatures which has also been on display at the large dolls house exhibition last year in Den Haag. I think I showed you a photo of this table laden with gorgeous silver tableware last year as well. I still love it!
This mid 19th century kitchen room box , filled with 18th century silver miniatures (also at the exhibition last year) is part of the permanent collection at the Rijksmuseum.
There are many more miniature related objects to discover at the museum (there's a whole gallery full of beautiful ships models) and of course...the three fantastic dolls houses! I didn't have time to look at them yesterday though, they will have to wait until my next visit.