Chimney hanging; pelmet, valance, rabat, visible on The Love Letter.

Chimney hanging, 'vallitie', also called 'pelmet, valance, rabat' in the Great Hall, room I and in the Cooking kitchen, room D. Cloth hung horizontally along the top of the chimney opening, hanging down for some 10 to 20 cm. It may catch some smoke which otherwise would pollute the room.

Rabat, according to the WNT Dictionary: "folded over part of a cloth" ; "a) nicely worked strip, mostly fringed or pleated alongside the top of a bed or bedstead opening; b) along the top of a curtain in general" WNT vol. VII,111, col. 113. Van Dale 1986 dictionary Dutch-English gives "pelmet, valance, rabat". Not to be mixed up with chimney cloth.

Note : This object was part of the Vermeer-inventory as listed by the Delft notary public J. van Veen on February 29, 1676, in the Thins/Vermeer home located on Oude Langendijk on the corner of Molenpoort. The painter Johannes Vermeer had died there at the end of December 1675. His widow Catherina and their eleven children still lived there with her mother Maria Thins.

The transcription of the 1676 inventory, now in the Delft archives, is based upon its first full publication by A.J.J.M. van Peer, "Drie collecties..." in Oud Holland 1957, pp. 98-103. My additions and explanations are added within square brackets [__]. Dutch terms have been checked against the world's largest language dictionary, the Dictionary of the Dutch Language (Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal , or WNT), which was begun by De Vries en Te Winkel in 1882. In 2001 many textile terms have been kindly explained by art historian Marieke de Winkel.

Illustration taken from the recently published handbook on Dutch Doll Houses by Jet Pijzel-Dommisse,Het Hollandse pronkpoppenhuis, Interieur en huishouden in de 17de en 18de eeuw, Waanders, Zwolle; Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2000, ill. 37.

 

This page forms part of a large encyclopedic site on Vermeer and Delft. Research by Drs. Kees Kaldenbach (email). A full presentation is on view at johannesvermeer.info.

Launched December, 2002; Last update March 2, 2017.

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