Nearly three centuries ago, this miniature stage was used in living rooms to demonstrate how theatre worked. The sets were the work of the set painters of Amsterdam’s city theatre at the time, of which nothing survives today due to a devastating fire. The chamber theatre has eight 18th-century and six 19th-century romantic backdrops.

Landscape as a stage

This small-scale version of a theatre, complete with sliding wing sets, inspired artists Arne Hendriks and Josef Zappe to create a replica. They explore the functionality of this miniature stage and link this to contemporary reality. Just as people pull the strings of stage sets, they do the same when shaping our natural environment. Arne Hendriks will regularly work in the exhibition room and enjoys engaging in conversation with visitors.

A 3D view tour of the Stedelijk Museum in 1922

By the late 19th century, the rise of realism and modernism demanded a new approach to set design. The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam responded with a major international exhibition on scenography, featuring eight rooms with new and often revolutionary ideas.

Architect H. Th. Wijdeveld (1885-1987) and designer Frits Lensvelt (1886-1945) played a key role in its realisation. Over several months, they worked tirelessly to fill the upper rooms of the museum with set, costume and theatre designs by approximately one hundred European and American artists.    

This section of the exhibition presents a reconstruction of that 1922 event. Several of the original designs are on display, along with a selection of (Asian) masks that Wijdeveld and Lensvelt borrowed from a museum in Leiden. A virtual 3D reconstruction has also been created, allowing visitors to walk through the exhibition as if they were there.