A 17th-century dolls’ house must number among the more unusual source “texts” through which we can find out about women’s lives in the past. Yet, for Petronella Oortman (1656–1716), this exquisite object forms an important window into the creative and imaginative life of a wealthy, married woman in Amsterdam.
Petronella came from a large family of seven children and grew up on the Singel canal. Her father was a gunmaker. She began to construct her dolls’ house as an adult, during her second marriage to a silk merchant, Johannes Brandt. Petronella’s dolls’ house appears to have been made in the late 1680s before the birth of four children.
