E16: French Hall of the Louis XII Period, c. 1500

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):

16: French Hall of the Louis XII Period, c. 1500
To prepare for this interior, Mrs. Thorne toured the Loire Valley, visiting its magnificent châteaux. She was impressed with the grandeur of the château at Blois, birthplace of Louis XII and a favorite residence of later monarchs. Regretting the absence at Blois of furniture—“the vital touch,” as she called it—she had to model the furnishings in this room after pieces she saw at another château in the Loire region, at Langeais, and in the Musée Cluny, Paris.
The Louis XII period was one of transition. As the need for constant vigilance against armed attack decreased, the fortified feudal strongholds evolved into more attractive domiciles. And while elements of the Gothic style continued to predominate, the influence of the Italian Renaissance became apparent in the furnishings of châteaux.
The canopied seat, resembling a choir stall, along the left wall and the elaborately carved cupboard, or dressoir, on the opposite wall evoke ecclesiastical furnishings in the late Gothic period. Also medieval in form are the two panel-back chairs flanking the fireplace and the metalwork, particularly the candlestand and lectern in the foreground. The remaining wood pieces are Italian in style. While the many objects in this hall show the variety of furnishings available and the decorative details of the period, such an array of ecclesiastical and domestic pieces is not historically accurate. For example, there would have been few chairs. The chair was not a normal piece of furniture until the Renaissance; before that, people sat on stools.
The fireplace mantel, modeled after one at the château of Chaumont, bears the emblems Mrs. Thorne had noted at Blois: “. . . the symbols of Louis XII and Anne of Brittany—his angry looking porcupine and her delicate little ermine, surmounted by a crown. These were used in the decoration and the carving, just as later Napoleon used the bee and Josephine the swan.”
This room measures 22 x 25 x 39 3/4 inches.