[3] Oortman was a wealthy widow by the time (in 1686) she married silk merchant Johannes Brandt,[4] with whom she lived on Warmoesstraat in Amsterdam.

[citation needed] In the Amsterdam of the Dutch Golden Age, their wealthy wives similarly created dollhouses as status symbols.

According to Hendrina, her mother lavished some 30,000 guilders on the dollhouse, an enormous sum certainly sufficient to buy a canal house of the time.

By way of comparison, Petronella de la Court's dollhouse, for which 1,600 pieces of furniture and paintings and 28 fine dolls were commissioned, was sold in 1744 for 1,200 guilders.

The current state of the rooms is still very much like it was depicted in Appel's painting, though of the wax dolls—"dressed to perfection"[8]—only the child in the nursery is left.