Kassandra's portrait cabinet

Today I visited Kassandra, since it was so much time since last I saw her.  I found her very busy, cleaning up a nightstand in her bedroom.  It was full of tiny portraits of people.

"Friends of yours?", I asked.

"Oh, some of them were more than friends", answered her, with a wink.  "But yes, they are people close to my heart.  Let's see if you recognize any of them!"

"Well, let's start with the drawer on the left.  I recognize them all.  They are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Jefferson and Edgar Allan Poe."

"Exactly right! All of them were very special to me at some point in my life.  What about the drawer on the right?"

"There you have me.  I recognize Elisabeth of Austria, and Lord Byron, of course.  But the other lady, I do not know who she is."

"Why, she is Mary Shelley, my dear!  Surely you have read Frankenstein?"

"Absolutely!  I did not know you knew any of them..."

"Oh, I was at the mansion by the lake in Geneva with them, Shelley and Dr. Polidori when the idea of the competition to write a horror story came up.  Who do you think proposed it?  Those were fun times.  You even recognized Elisabeth..."

"Of course.  Even though that portrait is not the most famous of her, I know Winterhalter's work."

"I was an asiduous visitor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Elisabeth was a delicious child, so unhappy all her life, poor thing!   I always said to her she spent too many hours doing her toilette, and she said, "Well, what would you have me do, my dear, go around with my hair to the wind?", and I said, "Sure, why not?"  And then I asked Winterhalter to do the painting of her with her hair down.  Then he later painted this small copy for my collection.  What about the third drawer?"

"Oh, the Romanov family is very famous, of course."

"Yes, I visited them often.  Alexandra and I were friends since before she married; her husband was very formal and gentlemanly with me.  I appreciated him.  What the mobs did to their kids in the revolution was unforgivable; even though I may understand the frustration of the Russian people, you do not execute children, ever."

"Vlad Tepes is infamous, as well.  Were you two related?"

"Oh yes.  He was a cousin, from the not-so down-to-Earth part of the family; but he knew how to get the work done.  Erzsébeth Báthory was not.  She was a friend of the family, but she so wanted to be one of our own!  She did some really stupid things, no wonder she was imprisoned when they found out!  All she had to do was ask, and I would not have said no, you know?  But her maid filled her head with fantasies, and it did not end up well for them, I am afraid."

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Fantasy apart, I saw this fantastic cabinet from Unique Miniatures, and I thought it was genius!  The creator mentions that she saw something similar in the Pride and Prejudice TV series with Colin Firth, so I went to investigate that.  And sure enough, in chapter 4 we have a showcase table full of little portraits:

The lady calls over Elizabeth Bennet to check out the table

The portraits showcased in the table

I have been trying to find out if this way to keep portraits was something common in the 19 century, but could not find anything on it.  From what I can see, I would say they are small portraits that used to hang in the house (they all have hangers, or bails) and are now gathered all together for some reason - maybe for renovations, or to preserve them better?  Some are small enough to be considered jewelry.  In any case, the idea for a miniature was lovely!

But I wanted to make my own; not only because it would be fun, but because every portrait that exists in my dollhouse has a meaning: a real person behind them, like my mom's or grandma's pictures, or someone Kassandra may have known - there is no strange people hanging about. 

The first thing I did was trying to figure out what would I use as frames for the portraits.  If I could not find any that were suitable, the whole project was moot.  I had perused many Etsy shops for mini findings before, but never found any that were so small.  But then who could came to mind other than Bindels Ornaments?  I have bought from them a couple of times at the Tom Bishop Show, and they have amazing components to work with.  So, I went to their website and spent some time going about their catalogue to find the perfect settings for the portraits.  I even made patterns of some of them to try them out in the drawers:

They will be perfect!

 So, I ordered them, and while they came, I took an ordinary and plain nightstand that I had in the dollhouse bedroom and the work began.  First, I lined the drawers with the same fabric paper I used on the Natural History cabinet:

Trying on the pattern

Three drawers covered with paper

Looking good!

Still waiting for the settings, I gathered the portraits of the people that were going to be in them - I used Google, of course.  That was fun, thinking about how Kassandra may have known them - some were going to be in undoubtedly, as they already appear in some of my novels.  And she being a vampire, some simply HAD to be in it.  When the settings arrived, I measured them, and using Photoshop, I made the portraits as small as required.  Printed them out 3 times for trial and error and voilà!  It took little effort to glue the paper to the settings.

Then I simply attached the settings to the drawers with a tiny bit of double-sided tape.  I have so enjoyed the process! Specially because I do not need any extra room to put the nightsatand, since it was already there.  I simply dressed it up a bit!

I am already planning a new cabinet, this time from an episode of Downton Abbey.  Stay tuned!