Function of this room: The washing kitchen in the celler is part of the 'lower house' or 'onderhuis'. which consists of the basement (E) and the cooking kitchen (D).
Small scullery at the back of the house, Oddly no mention is made of any washing tub, washing board and soap. Were the clothes washed elsewhere in the house? It looks more like storage space.
Inventory: "two spinning wheels', twee spinnewielen ; 'A cradle', een wiech."
See the original documents from the Delft Archives. Goods owned by Catharina Bolnes, page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6, page 7. Goods jointly owned by Catharina Bolnes and Maria Thins, page 1, page 2, page 3, page 4, page 5, page 6.
Note
: These rooms and objects were part of the Vermeer-inventory as
listed by the assistant of 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...", Oud Holland, 1957, pp. 98-103. My additions and explanations are added in 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.
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 1, 2017.
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