Het huys is als een graf, waerin wy altyt wonen,
In ’t aerdsche tranendal.
(Travelling is a task not given to everybody,
And it’s not said so much and without blame
That the home is like a grave, wherein we always dwell,
In the earthly vale of tears.)
Plate XXXV.—Chairs.
RIJKS MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM.
The house was therefore “their world, their toy, their god”; they loved to embellish and decorate it, they loved to take care of it and keep it clean, they loved to see it painted on panel and canvas; and some of them even went so far as to have their house reproduced in miniature, with all its furniture and belongings copied in wood and metal.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the so-called dolls’ houses, which may be studied in the museums of Amsterdam, Utrecht, and other towns, were merely the somewhat elaborate toys with which the English-speaking juvenile race sometimes amuse themselves. As the old inventories show, dolls’ houses and all their appurtenances were very vivid mirrors of contemporary life, including furniture and costume. This is particularly true of Holland, although other countries of Western Europe preserved evidences of the taste for similar “toys” of earlier date. Henry IV of France, for instance, when a child, played with toys, among which are noticeable a suit of clothes in wrought silver.