The Miniaturist

The Miniaturist (2014) is the debut novel of English author and actress Jessie Burton. The novel became an international bestseller following a bidding war in 2013 and won the 2014 Waterstones Book of the Year award. In 2017, a television adaptation aired on BBC One, starring Anya Taylor-Joy.

A work of historical fiction, The Miniaturist is set in 17th-century Amsterdam. Narrated in the third person, the story follows the coming-of-age of protagonist Nella Oortman within a marriage that meets none of her girlish expectations. The narrative combines historical detail with elements of mystery and suspense as Nella receives cryptic gifts from a miniaturist (an artist who creates miniature models) who has uncanny insight into her life. The novel’s themes include gender roles and autonomy, the nature of love, and appearances versus reality.

This guide refers to the 2014 Picador paperback edition.

Plot Summary

In 1686, 18-year-old Petronella (Nella) Oortman arrives in Amsterdam from her rural hometown of Assendelft. After marrying Dutch merchant Johannes Brandt, Nella has come to live with her husband on the Golden Bend, Amsterdam's wealthiest area.

Nella is impressed by her husband’s mansion, which looks out onto the canal. However, she is disappointed to find Johannes absent when she arrives. Instead, she is greeted coldly by Johannes’s sister, Marin. Nella also meets the servants: Cornelia and Otto (who was formerly enslaved). She has the uncomfortable feeling they are laughing at her.

Nella is eager for her married life to begin so she can leave girlhood behind and become a woman. When Johannes returns, he is kind but does not attempt to consummate the marriage. Fruitlessly waiting for her husband to visit her at night, Nella often hears whispering and doors opening and closing. She also notices that the hierarchy in the house is unconventional. The servants speak to their employers like equals, and Marin behaves like the master and mistress of the household.

Marin pesters Johannes to sell a sugar consignment for a couple named Frans and Agnes Meermans, but he seems reluctant. On a whim, Nella creeps into Marin’s room, expecting it to reflect her sister-in-law’s austere character. Instead, she discovers an exotic boudoir and a note from Marin’s unnamed lover.

As a wedding gift to Nella, Johannes commissions an expensive cabinet. Its interior is divided into rooms exactly replicating the rooms of their home. Nella is insulted, feeling her husband perceives her as a child. Nevertheless, she writes to a miniaturist, asking for items to furnish the cabinet. When the miniatures arrive, unrequested items are also in the parcel, including a cradle and precise replicas of Johannes’s dogs, Dhana and Rezeki. This is the first of several packages Nella receives suggesting that the miniaturist has intimate knowledge of her life. A cryptic note accompanies each package, their messages sometimes encouraging Nella to take charge of her life.

Nella decides to visit the miniaturist in town. When she knocks at the shop door, a fair-haired woman appears at the window but does not let Nella in. A man outside the shop tells Nella that the miniaturist lives alone and follows her own rules. Nella returns home. She feels somehow relieved that the miniaturist is a woman, yet it is still unclear how this woman knows so much about Nella’s life.

After attending a merchants’ feast with Johannes, Nella feels closer to her husband. However, he recoils when she attempts to seduce him. Soon after, Nella visits Johannes at work. She is horrified to find him receiving fellatio from Jack Philips—the young Englishman who delivers their parcels.

Following her shocking discovery, Nella realizes that Marin arranged her brother’s marriage to conceal his sexual orientation. The punishment for same-sex relationships in 17th-century Amsterdam is death by drowning. Nella is initially devastated, feeling deprived of a proper marriage. However, she feels that she becomes a more valued part of the household as time passes. Her friendship with Cornelia grows, and the servant reveals secrets about Marin. Cornelia confides that Marin’s plain black dresses are lined with luxurious fur. She also claims that, years earlier, Frans Meermans wanted to marry Marin, but Johannes forbade the union. Cornelia believes Frans still loves Marin and married Agnes for her sugar plantation.

Johannes travels to Venice to sell the Meermanses’ sugar. Meanwhile, Jack Philips arrives at the house, angry that Johannes has cut ties with him. Jack kills Rezeki with a dagger and scuffles with Otto. When Otto stabs him in the shoulder, Jack threatens to accuse the servant of attempted murder. Soon afterward, Otto disappears. Marin admits she advised him to flee to London.

Based on the continued arrival of uncannily realistic miniatures, the miniaturist seems to be watching Nella from afar but remains elusive. Some of the dolls seem to change as unexpected events unfold. A red mark appears on Rezeki’s figurine after Jack kills her, and the sugar loaf that the Agnes Meermans doll is holding ominously turns black. After Nella’s parakeet, Peebo, escapes, she receives a miniature of the bird. Strangest of all, when Nella discovers Marin is pregnant, she notices that the doll of her sister-in-law also has a swollen belly; Nella assumes Frans is the father.

Johannes returns from Venice, having failed to sell the sugar. One day, Frans Meermans calls at the house after visiting the warehouse where his wife’s sugar is stored. Frans complains that much of the sugar is now moldy. He also tells Marin that he and Agnes witnessed Johannes sexually assaulting Jack. After Nella hears the allegation, she warns Johannes to leave before Frans reports him to the authorities.

Johannes flees, but he is captured and imprisoned to await trial. Meanwhile, Nella begins to sell the sugar loaves to the local confectioner, Arnoud Maakvrede. She hopes the proceeds can pay off Frans and Jack, who corroborates Frans’s story. Nella begs Marin to tell Frans about her pregnancy, hoping the news of his forthcoming fatherhood will soften him. Marin refuses but admits that, although she loved Frans, she asked Johannes to turn down Frans’s marriage proposal, as she had no desire to be a wife.

During Johannes’s trial, Nella and Agnes help Marin deliver a baby girl, whom Marin names Thea. The baby has surprisingly dark skin. Nella visits the miniaturist’s abandoned workshop. She finds hundreds of dolls and piles of letters from the women of Amsterdam. Nella meets the miniaturist’s father, a clockmaker named Lucas Windelbreke. He reveals that his daughter is also named Petronella and possesses an eerie ability to see into people’s souls.

Johannes is sentenced to death, and Marin dies shortly after childbirth. Nella attends her husband’s execution but cannot watch as he drowns with a millstone around his neck. She senses someone watching her and sees Otto—Thea’s biological father. Nella takes Otto back to the house to meet his baby girl.