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A1: Massachusetts Living Room and Kitchen, 1675–1700
Narcissa Niblack Thorne (American, 1882–1966)
c. 1940
- Medium
- Miniature room, mixed media
- Classification
- Miniature room
- Dimensions
- External: 59.1 × 101.3 × 75 cm (23 1/4 × 39 7/8 × 29 1/2 in.); Internal (main room only): 22.3 × 52.1 × 36.6 cm (8 3/4 × 20 1/2 × 14 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- United States
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Applied Arts of Europe
- Credit line
- Gift of Mrs. James Ward Thorne
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Narcissa Niblack Thorne, creator of the Thorne Rooms, combined a deep knowledge of design history with a vivid imaginative sensibility. In the 1930s, she assembled a team of skilled artisans in Chicago to construct a series of intricately detailed interiors at the scale of one inch to one foot (1:12).
Conceived as a visual history of interior design, the rooms are at once scholarly and inventive. Meticulously researched and carefully composed, they balance historical accuracy with artistic interpretation. Each atmospheric interior feels like a stage set awaiting its occupants—two parts fantasy, one part history, and entirely absorbing.
Entry from Fannia Weingartner, Miniature Rooms: The Thorne Rooms at the Art Institute of Chicago, 2nd ed. (The Art Institute of Chicago, 2004):
1: Massachusetts Living Room and Kitchen, 1675–1700 This interior represents a domestic setting of some fifty years after the Pilgrims had established themselves at Plymouth. By this time, settlers in North America had constructed more substantial housing resembling those left behind in England, but made of native materials and adapted to local use. In this, as in the following interiors, the settlers’…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
