Seventeenth-Century Pronk Poppenhuisen: Domestic Space and the Ritual Function of Dutch Dollhouses for Women

Abstract

ABSTRACTA number of pronk poppenhuisen, or “dollhouses for show” were commissioned in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Netherlands for adult women. The large wooden cabinets with multiple partitioned spaces construct a fully furnished Dutch home in miniature, complete with dolls representing family, servants, and pets. The dollhouses have been primarily regarded as sophisticated collections enjoyed by elite female connoisseurs. This study will investigate the surviving dollhouses of Petronella de la Court, Petronella Dunois, and Petronella Oortman as complex didactic objects that prescribed an ideal domestic identity for Dutch mothers and wives in the early modern Netherlands, in part through a three-dimensional structure that encouraged a tactile, physically interactive relationship with the viewer. Manipulation of the dolls within selective, gendered architectural spaces allowed the dollhouse owners to visualize the ideal Dutch home and “perform” their appropriate role within it as productive, disciplined, and orderly wives, mothers, and domestic managers.