E17: French Bedroom of the Henri IV Period, Late 16th Century

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):

17: French Bedroom, Late 16th Century
“At Azay-le-Rideau,” wrote Mrs. Thorne, “I touched and thoroughly examined the piece of old leather, the design of which I have had painted on the walls of the miniature room planned to represent the decorative style of the period of [François I].” The painted and beamed ceiling of this room was inspired by the same source. The overmantel was adapted from one in the château at Loches and depicts a salamander, an emblem of François I.
Impressed by the magnificent architecture and decorative and fine arts he had seen on a visit to Italy, François I (reigned 1515–47) undertook an enormous program of château construction, inviting some of Italy’s greatest architects and artists—Leonardo da Vinci, Benvenuto Cellini, Primaticcio, and Rosso Fiorentino—to design and decorate such royal residences as Fontainebleau and Chambord.
Like the Louis XII hall (see E-16: French Hall of the Louis XII Period, c. 1500), this room contains more cabinets and seat furniture than would have been included in an actual bedchamber. Despite its inaccuracies, this interior conveys a sense of the splendor that Mrs. Thorne associated with the luxury-loving and extravagant king. Most of the furnishings reflect styles dating from the second half of the sixteenth or early part of the seventeenth century. The exceptions are the panel-back chair near the seventeenth-century style draped bed and two Gothic joint stools (one next to the bed, the other in the right foreground). The stools, it should be noted, would not have served as tables. The two cabinets, called armoires-à-deux-corps, and the high-back carved chair were copied from originals in the Musée Cluny, Paris.
The portrait miniature on the left wall, of a later period, came from an antique collection in Brittany, as did the small reliquary and rosary to the right of the bed, and the gold ornaments on the oak credence. The chandelier was made from small pieces of gilt bronze (ormolu) found in a shop in Paris.
Through the open door one sees a simulated tapestry; the window to the left affords a glimpse of the town of Loches.
This room measures 19 1/4 x 26 x 27 inches.