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A5: Massachusetts Drawing Room, 1768
Narcissa Niblack Thorne (American, 1882–1966)
c. 1940
- Medium
- Miniature room, mixed media
- Classification
- Miniature room
- Dimensions
- External: 51.5 × 143.6 × 61.6 cm (20 1/4 × 56 1/2 × 24 1/4 in.); Internal (main room only): 31.2 × 70.5 × 57.8 cm (12 1/4 × 27 3/4 × 22 3/4 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):
5: Massachusetts Drawing Room, 1768 It is a far cry from the simplicity of the preceding interior to this elegant drawing room modeled after an original in the Jeremiah Lee mansion in Marblehead. Settled by fishermen from the Channel Islands, the coastal town became a prosperous fishing and merchant community. Although the early settlers of New England had been disappointed in the rocky terrain of their…
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
