Ode to Agnes Maria Backer-Clifford | Ode to 'Grandma Backer'

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How something beautiful can emerge from adversity.

'Grootje Backer' was the pet name for Agnes Maria Backer-Clifford from the moment she became grandmother to her first grandchild, her namesake, in 1790. Fourteen more grandchildren would follow. Agnes Maria Clifford (1739-1828) was the granddaughter of the doughty George Clifford (1685-1760), banker, living in a grand building on Herengracht (nos. 573/575) and owner of the impressive Hartestein country estate in Heemstede.

Her father Pieter (1712-1788) was also a banker and her mother Johanna came from the Trip family, one of Amsterdam's most influential families. The Clifford family - Agnes had a sister and two brothers - lived successively at Herengracht 450, then at 458 and from 1749 at 480, all in the “Golden Bend. After grandfather George's death in 1760, they inherited the country house in Heemstede. A childhood in opulence.

In 1762, when Agnes was 22, she married Cornelis Backer (1738-1811) from a prominent Amsterdam family. Cornelis was second, and from 1766 first, secretary of the Admiralty. That was a position that gave you a servant's residence, a house on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal near the Admiralty office, on the spot where hotel The Grand now stands.

In 1772 the Clifford bank went bankrupt, due to economic circumstances but also partly due to mismanagement. Father Pieter then became one of the mayors of Amsterdam several times. When he died in 1788, his heirs must have been shocked at the limited size of the estate; much of grandfather Clifford's enormous capital had disappeared. Hartestein was sold. Daughter Johanna (“Hansje”) Backer married Pieter Dedel in 1789, and fortunately the Dedel family-in-law had access to country estates in 's-Graveland and the family was able to spend time there. Grootje Backer even founded a nursery school there for poor children. It regularly happened that unaccompanied children fell into the canal there and drowned. And Grootje Backer could not stand to see that.

For the Backers, the new financial circumstances must have hit hard (Grootje Backer maintained a legendary frugality among her relatives). But Agnes straightened her back: she decided to create her own living world, a doll's house. She probably knew the showpiece dollhouses of Petronella de la Court and Petronella Oortman (17th century), and of Sara Rothé (18th century). These were landmarks in Amsterdam. But those ladies had decorated the houses with the help of artists and talented artisans. Agnes decided - out of thrift or drive? - to do the decorating herself.

She made two different dollhouses. Maybe for two granddaughters? One dollhouse has five rooms, the other three. If you take time to look closely at the dollhouses, you will see how much love and inventiveness went into decorating them. Grootje Backer has empathized and made every effort to make everything look as real as possible. Thriftiness coupled with diligence produced brilliant results.

The parlor of the “Great Doll's House,” with its embroidered silk wall coverings, matching upholstered chairs, rich silk curtains, dolls dressed in detail and embroidered rug.

Her dollhouses display a richness that her own living quarters may not have had: silk wall paneling, silk and lace curtains, room-sized rugs. The dolls may have come from English family ownership, she had inherited silver “doll's feet” from her father, and she had probably collected all the furniture and knickknacks over the years. The dollhouses consisted of simple boxes stacked on top of each other, to be closed with doors with glass. The “Great Doll's House” has a kitchen, a pantry, a parlor, a maternity room and a boudoir or art room. There are nine “inhabitants”: two servants in the kitchen, a man and two women in the parlor and in the maternity room, the maternity fold (in bed) and a baby (in the crib), a visitor and a baker. The “Little Doll's House” has only a maternity room, a dressing attic and a maid's room with a storage attic. The maternity room contains the maternity wife and the maternity master, a baby in the crib, a baker and a visitor.

Parlors, maternity rooms, kitchens and laundry attics were found in almost every dollhouse. But such a boudoir or art room as the one in the Great Doll's House is special; Grootje Backer invented it herself. An elegant room with unusual blue wallpaper with red frames, papered from bottom to top with tiny prayer cards. And on a pedestal a fishbowl.

Everything textile Agnes made herself. She embroidered the rugs, wall hangings and chair covers, indulged herself on the four-poster beds and dressed the dolls, sometimes using up to 15 pieces of clothing per doll. Each costume entirely according to the fashion of the time.

The maternity room with blue wallpaper with white polka dots in the small dollhouse is richly furnished with a marble fireplace, a mirror above it and a decorative mural and two silver wall sconces. The curtain, flounce and bedspread of the maternity bed are trimmed with yellow/blue passements and on the right is a dressing table with a tiny brush holder. The rug is embroidered in gobelin stitch. In the laundry attic, the maid stands amidst all the items needed to dry and iron laundry; there is also an embroidered rug. The maid's room has a bedstead.

She probably began working on the first dollhouse around 1788, the year of her father's death; the style of clothing indicates that. Eventually the work took about twenty years to complete.

The Backers were traditionally Orange-minded, so Cornelis Backer decided to quit his job at the Admiralty when the French regime arrived in 1798. So no more service house either. The family moved to a rented house on Prinsengracht (no. 1099), a much simpler house than the one in which Agnes had grown up. Family lore reports that the frugality of “Grootje Backer” became increasingly extreme: hardly any lighting or heating in the house. This must have been a handicap with Grootje's hobby: sewing and embroidering (with such tiny stitches!) in the cold and with little light is almost impossible. While on the Prinsengracht she must still have sewn and embroidered in abundance. The carpet in the maternity room of the Zutphen doll's house bears the year 1805, that of the Dordt maternity room 1806.

'Grootje Backer' outlived her husband and all four of her children. The last, Kees, who lived with her on Prinsengracht, died in 1827. She herself began to feel more and more the effects of old age. She hardly came out of her (cold) house anymore and spent much time lying on the sofa in the side room overlooking the Prinsengracht. Fortunately, she had her faithful servant Kaatje Willems to take care of her. On December 3, 1828, she died, aged 89. Whether her extreme frugality had been justified is questionable, as her estate amounted to more than half a million guilders.

No portraits of Grootje Backer and her family exist. A great-granddaughter knows that she heard that shortly before her death, Grootje had cut out the faces from the silhouette portraits (which she apparently owned). She did not want to preserve the effigies for posterity.

Silhouette portrait of Agnes sister-in-law Cornelia Elias (1732-1796). The portraits in Grootje Backer's possession must have looked similar. Backer Foundation collection, on long-term loan to the Amsterdam Museum.
 

The dollhouses have always remained in family possession until they were given museum use, the small dollhouse on loan to the Stedelijk Museum Zutphen, the large one to Huis Van Gijn in Dordrecht in 1971.
 

Annemarie Vels Heijn