Spoons
were used throughout the house in order to eat soup or solid food
from the central cooking pot. One did not commonly eat from plates,
but there were enough shell-formed plates or 'schilpschalen'
for the entire Thins/Vermeer family. Forks were not used yet, but
knives were also used to bring food to the mouth.
A tin ladle with wooden handle, 'een tinne pollepel met een houte steel' in the small room off the Great Hall, room G. Ten tin spoons were in the yard, space O. Three iron spoons, 'drie ysere slicklepels' were in the mezzanine, room H.
Note : This object was part of the Vermeer-inventory as listed by the clerk working for Delft notary public J. van Veen. He made this list 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.
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. 429.
Lit.: L.F.H.H. Beekhuizen, De schoonheid van het oude tin. Een overzicht van vijf eeuwen tin, Pilkington & Larousse, 's-Hertogenbosch 1998.
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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