The new fireplace in the kitchen plays an important role in our restoration project at the Henrik Ibsen Museum, Venstøp. For many years we have told stories of the Ibsen family living in simple conditions after the bankruptcy.
When the museum’s very own Ibsen expert, Jørgen Haave, started diving into sources and information for the book about the Ibsen family, he got a whole new perspective of the family’s living conditions. It wasn’t as bad as we first thought. They had a grand farmhouse and servers and maids working for them. For the patrician families it was a shame to degrade themselves with practical work. The Ibsen family lived for many years as one of the richest families in Skien. They were invited to parties and withstood their social status. Though on borrowed time.
Picture: Jørgen Haave by the old fireplace and the chimney which was demolished in 2019.
When the Ibsen family eventually had to move from the farm at Venstøp and down to the impoverished Snipetorp, the farmhouse was converted to a semi-detached house. From 1958, after the house was turned into a museum, the museum, as mentioned, told stories about the Ibsen family as poor, and that Mrs Ibsen stood by the fireplace and made porridge for the family; that is proven wrong by the research done by Jørgen Haave. Neither the location of the kitchen nor that Mrs Ibsen would demean herself to make porridge matches the stories.
Since 2019 we’ve worked steadily with the main house at Venstøp. The listed house is altered to show the truth about the Ibsen family. In the 2028 jubilee, a new entrance together with the kitchen, the parlour and the maid’s room will be finished.
There’s a lot to be documented when a listed building is being altered. Along with that, materials and building techniques will be as they were in the 1830s-1840s’s. Therefore, we hit a milestone when our craftworker, in Norwegian techniques, Karina Børven struck the match and lit the birch bark in the pit.
The flames quickly filled the pit, and the smoke rose up and out the chimney. With the new fireplace in the kitchen, we want to tell how the Ibsen family and families like them baked, cooked and lived for visitors in 2028.
