LIFE IN MINIATURE

(From left) Walls decorated with artwork, delicate tableware and a four-poster bed draped with silk curtains - no luxury is spared when it comes to furnishing Petronella Oortman's doll's house, a key attraction at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.

- Nina Siegal

The painted wood display case in the dining room of the 17th-century mansion contains 114 blue-and-white porcelain dishes, as well as jugs, vases and drinking vessels made of hand-blown glass.

No one will ever eat off or drink anything from them.

The largest item of the tableware is no more than 1.2cm and the tiniest - a teacup - no bigger than a pushpin. They sit inside the doll's house of Petronella Oortman, one of the collection highlights at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It is not for kids.

Although children do enjoy gazing into its dazzling rooms and observing the elements that Oortman collected and displayed with such care, those pieces, made by specialised craftspeople more than 300 years ago, are too precious and fragile for avid little fingers.

The fully furnished doll's house cost about 30,000 guilders in its day - the same price at the time as a real mansion on the Herengracht, Amsterdam's most expensive canal.

"It was famous in its time as the most lavish and luxurious doll's house in Europe," said Dr Alexander Dencher, a furniture curator at the Rijksmuseum.

From 1686 to 1710, Oortman, the wife of a wealthy Amsterdam silk merchant, filled the doll's house with exquisite miniature furnishings like a fourposter bed draped with silk curtains, sofas topped with velvet cushions, embroidered wall hangings and marble floors.

She added everything needed to run the house, including 23 tiny wicker baskets to stack laundry or carry groceries.

Ordinarily on view in the museum's permanent display, the doll's house was moved a few weeks ago to another wing, where it is now a centrepiece of the exhibition, At Home In The 17th Century, which runs through Jan 11.

INSIGHTS INTO LIFE DURING THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE

The show aims to give visitors a feel for domestic life during the Dutch Golden Age.