Page 1 - Women Collectors and the Rise of the Porcelain Cabinet (Collecting history in Europe)

CHAPTER X

Women collectors and the rise of the porcelain

cabinet

CORDULA BISCHOFF

In the Early Modern period, architecture was used not displayed, at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague. At the
only by princes but also by princesses as a means of beginning of her widowhood in 1648–49 a two-part
image cultivation. Interior design, in particular, was room explicitly designated as a ‘groote porceleyn-cabinet’
regarded as a female domain. The functions required came into being in her newly established apartments
by women inside palaces were different from those of there.
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men and so the facilities they used also differed, for
example as regards the size, number and sequence It is also known from inventories and contemporary
of rooms. In addition, there were certain rooms that descriptions that in the fi rst half of the 17 century
th
were created specifi cally for women: rooms that other princesses had also started to present their
did not exist, or only appeared at a later date and in growing porcelain collections as self-contained
an altered form, in men’s apartments. This was the complexes in specially created cabinets. Upon her
case, in particular, with rooms housing porcelain death in 1619, Eleanora of Bourbon (1587–1619), the
collections and their variants. 1 wife of Prince Philip William of Orange (1554–1618),
and daughter-in-law of William I of Orange (1533–
th
Over the course of the 17 century four types of room 1584), left 165 pieces of porcelain and numerous
decorated with porcelain and faience came into being: ‘Indian’ objects. These were kept in a cabinet lined
the chinoiserie cabinet, the grand kitchen, the grand with ‘oostindiaens’ gold fabric, which was located next
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bathroom and the porcelain grotto. This development to her bedchamber in Breda. Amalia’s mother-in-
began in the Netherlands, but spread throughout law Louise de Coligny (1555–1620), fourth wife of
Europe within just a few decades, promoted primarily William I, had her 285 pieces of porcelain arranged
by the female members of the House of Orange. in groups. They were displayed in groups, each
This chapter investigates the origins of these rooms, consisting of six shelves arranged in two rows of
their importance as spaces for female courtly display, three in her Kunstkammer at Noordeinde Palace, along
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and their association with the Dutch ruling dynasty. with numerous other exotic objects. Amalia’s sister-
Relationships within this dynasty can be seen in the in-law Catharine Belgica (1578–1648), a daughter of
family tree in Fig. 10 at the end of this chapter. William I from his third marriage, who lived in the
Stadholder’s Palace from 1622 to 1648, placed her
The lacquer room created in about 1654 at Huis ten porcelain on red- and gilt-painted shelves, alongside
Bosch by Amalia van Solms-Braunfels (1602–1675), large porcelain pots positioned on stands, as is
wife of Stadholder Frederick Henry, is considered the evident from a description written in 1634. 8
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earliest attested porcelain room, or cabinet (Fig. 1),
although a more accurate appellation would be the There were already relatively large porcelain
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earliest such room in an Asian style. Amalia herself collections in England at this time. At her villa
< Fig. 1
had previously constructed rooms in which porcelain known as Tart Hall in London, for example, Aletheia Gerard van Honthorst (1590–
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and other objects were used as decorative elements: Howard, Countess of Arundel (1585–1654), had an 1656) (studio of), Amalia von
Solms, 1651. Oil on panel,
for example, in 1632 she had created a cabinet, and extension built especially for her ‘Dutch Pranketing
7.3 x 59.8 cm. Rijksmuseum,
around 1632–34 a gallery, in which porcelain was [Banqueting] Room’, a combination of collector’s Amsterdam, inv. no. SK-A-179.

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