Anya Taylor-Joy, who recently starred in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split, takes on the role of eighteen-year-old Nella Oortman, who leaves her home in the country to begin her new life as the wife of a wealthy merchant Johannes Brandt (Alex Hassell – Anonymous, Cold Mountain) in Amsterdam.

However she is met by the commanding and cold Marin (Romola Garai – Atonement), Johannes sister, and she rapidly realises that things are not as they seem in the Brandt household.

Her husband then presents her with an extraordinary wedding gift: a cabinet that is a perfect replica of their home that has been furnished by the talented and mysterious Miniaturist.

However when the creations of the model house start to mirror the goings-on of the Brandt household, predicting and shaping the future with an unnerving precision, Nella must act fast against the escalating danger to them all.

The three-part drama for BBC One also features Humans’ Emily Berrington, I, Daniel Blake’s Hayley Squires, and Paapa Essiedu (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Utopia).

Taylor-Joy spoke of her delight at taking on the role of Nella, adding “I couldn’t be happier to tell this amazing and atmospheric story. I immediately fell in love with Nella’s resilience and am so looking forward to telling her story.”

The show is based on Jessie Burton’s internationally best-selling novel, and is being adapted by John Brownlow.

Burton took to Twitter to express her delight at the casting, saying “my imagination took human form and I am totally chilled about it.”

She added in a statement from the BBC, “This is an adventure for my book I never dreamed possible. The assembled cast is perfect to the vision I had in my mind’s eye in every way.”

Screenwriter John Brownlow added, “despite it’s delicious and unfamiliar period setting, [The Miniaturist’s] concerns are absolutely modern: privacy, sexuality, corruption, commerce, hypocrisy, race, public shaming… all woven into a tightly plotted story full of surprising twists and turns.”

The Miniaturist is another large-scale drama from The Forge, which was behind RTS award winning drama National Treasure, and is a BBC co-production with MASTERPIECE. 

The Miniaturist will air later this year.