Some time in 1686, Petronella Oortman, a well-to-do Amsterdam woman, drew up these rather extravagant blueprints.
To celebrate her second marriage to a successful silk merchant, she hired a crackerjack team of artisans to construct a house befitting her high social stature. The list of names included that of a prominent French cabinetmaker, a muralist, a tapestry designer and even several painters now renowned for their prominence in the Netherlands’ artistic Golden Age.
But Petronella wasn’t constructing a mansion along one of Amsterdam’s storied canals. She had instead tasked these notable (and expensive) men with building something far grander: the bespoke dollhouse of her dreams.
Construction and interior design of the dollhouse took two decades and ultimately cost nearly 30,000 guilders (Petronella’s contemporaries were spending similar amounts to buy their fancy canal houses). She outfitted the house with marble floors, copper piping and a fully operational garden fountain. When stocking the tiny kitchen’s even tinier shelves, she ordered custom porcelain dishware all the way from China.
But Petronella didn’t create this dollhouse as a gift for her children. Rather, some historians believe she envisioned the dollhouse as a feminine version of the curiosity cabinet trend then sweeping European society. Well-traveled men would collect souvenirs and oddities to display as symbols of their education and sophistication; in Petronella’s take on the fad, she used her dollhouse to do something similar. She took everyday features of her domestic life — managing the household, mothering her children and hosting parties, events and even funerals — and made them small. Small, and beautiful.
As a child, I also had a dollhouse. My grandfather bought it at a yard sale and souped it up with his own little touches: he added mismatched miniature furniture and even wired it for electricity. I would stay up late just to flick the miniscule light switches on and watch the whole thing light up.
Tiny things soothe me. There’s something about scrolling the #booknook tag on TikTok or watching a YouTube dollhouse construction — the itchiness in my brain stops, even for just a little. As an adult, I have a corner of my living room bookshelf dedicated to eensy souvenirs and fairy-sized gifts from friends.
Nearly 250 years after Petronella dreamed up her own miniature marvel, Carrie Stettheimer was putting the finishing touches on hers. Her own dollhouse — now on view at the Museum of the City of New York — features minute works hand-made by modern art legends like Gaston Lachaise and Marcel Duchamp. Carrie fashioned foyer curtains from cellophane and a long red carpet from velvet ribbon. She collaged the nursery wallpaper herself.
Carrie and her younger sisters, Florine and Ettie, hosted a regular salon for the stars of early 20th century society (hence the connections that enabled the custom-crafted works decorating her dollhouse). But while her younger sisters made names for themselves in the arts — Florine as a painter and Ettie as a writer — Carrie gave up her own ambitions to run their household. As The Museum of the City of New York describes, “her creative energies were channeled instead into the crafting of a miniature world.”
I visited Chicago at the beginning of March. One of my girlfriend’s best friends was getting married, and I was genuinely excited about attending as a plus-one. My only jobs: eat deep dish pizza and tear up the dance floor (both accomplished).
The weekend away couldn’t have come at a better time. Just days before, I’d quit my full-time job, pierced my septum and turned 33 — I was, to be frank, going through it.
But I woke up on the wedding morning with a real gift: a blissfully blank stretch of time ahead of me. I drank hot hotel coffee in bed, laced up my boots and walked along the river to the Art Institute of Chicago. I wanted to finally visit the Thorne Rooms.
In the depths of the Great Depression, Narcissa Niblack Thorne hired a coterie of talented architects and artisans to create 100 miniature rooms that would chart the history of interior design. The craftspeople, many of whom had found themselves out of work during the crisis, dedicated the next eight years to scaling down medieval cathedrals, Georgian bedrooms and Japanese gardens.
I was entranced by the Thorne Rooms, of course. I found myself paying special attention to the details peeking just beyond the windows and walls: a pair of shoes waiting beside the door, or a sleeping cat beside the fire. A single visible rose conjured images of expansive garden grounds. A curved staircase beckoned us to explore the invisible upstairs.
Miniature worlds like these are “not an escape from the real world, but a way to engage, confront, question, critique, or consider it,” said anthropologist Louise Krasniewicz.
Tiny things have a lot to teach us, even today. In a previous edition of this newsletter, I explored the life of Frances Glessner Lee, a medical examiner who crafted “nutshell studies” of horrific crime scenes to train the next generation of forensic pathologists. Karen Collins, founder of the African American Miniature Museum, created hundreds of dioramas as a living visual timeline of Black history. Her shadowbox art displays recreations of historic moments — Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering a sermon, for example — alongside scenes of everyday Black families. My favorite: a trio of Black women sipping martinis in the living room.
As Charles Siebert wrote of Narcissa’s tiny worlds:
It is not just their verisimilitude, but also the way they draw us in with enticing glimpses of spaces just beyond the ones recreated … Somehow, these various doors, ajar on endlessness, inspire in us an altogether lofty and untenable urge to abide forever within a lavishly furnished shadow box.
That was precisely why I made the plan that day in Chicago: I wanted — needed! — that feeling of enchantment and possibility. I hope reading this brought you some of that, too.
What else is happening in my world:
I’ll be hosting the next several weeks of Apple News in Conversation. We’ll be talking about money, power and more. My first two episodes are out now! I spoke with The Cut’s Charlotte Cowles about scams and financial therapist Megan McCoy on the long-standing effects of financial trauma. Please listen. Review us so they think I’m doing a good job!!!
Did you read the Dear America series as a kid? When I asked this question in the last newsletter, more than 90% of you responded with enthusiastic YESSSSSSES. I’m rereading the series and recapping them on my TikTok. Follow!
As you can see, today’s newsletter looks different. I like it better, and I hope you do, too. It also takes more time, effort and energy. If you’d like to become a paying subscriber, you can do so below. More to come!
More on minis:
The Miniaturist, by Jessie Burton
American Rooms in Miniature, by Narcissa Niblack Thorne
Life in Miniature: A History of Dolls’ Houses, by Nicola Lislie
Carrie Stettheimer’s Domesticity in Miniature, The New Yorker
Why Do We Love Tiny Things?, Bustle
Dollhouses Weren’t Invented for Play, The Atlantic
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