E18: French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700

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):

18: French Salon of the Louis XIV Period, 1660–1700
During the period of Louis XIV, the Sun King (reigned 1643–1715), France became the dominant political and cultural force in Europe. In the course of his long reign, the king availed himself of the services of many of Europe’s finest artists, architects, designers, and craftsmen to create a grand manner that would express the glory of his rule. They adapted architectural and decorative forms of the Italian High Renaissance and Baroque styles to grand decorating schemes that encompassed all the arts. The most monumental and ambitious of these was, of course, the royal palace at Versailles.
Mrs. Thorne decided to devote two rooms to this significant era. “The first room,” she explained, “is designed to show the magnificence expressed in decorative design during the early part of the reign. . . . It is a salon in which Le Grand Monarque would have received his nobles. [For it] I have selected the architectural style of Jean Le Pautre, with great pilasters, massive doors, tall windows and niches holding statuary. . . . The ceiling of this room shows the continued Italian influence.” Jean Le Pautre was one of the creators of what became known as the Louis XIV style. Le Pautre’s more than two thousand engravings of architectural and decorative details—from ceilings and sculptural chimney pieces to elaborately carved furniture—helped disseminate the Grand Manner throughout Europe.
In this interior, the gilt furniture, with its elaborate scrolls and carvings, exhibits a continuing Italian influence. The two commodes replicate pieces in the Wallace Collection, London. They are in the style of André-Charles Boulle, the first in the line of eminent French-born designers and furniture makers to work at the French court. The table in the center of the room is modeled after a piece now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The painting above the fireplace is a miniature reproduction of Hyacinthe Rigaud’s portrait, also in the Louvre, of Louis XIV in his robes of state. The initial letter of the king’s name appears in the room as a decorative motif, as does his emblem, a head surrounded by sun rays. The pile carpet was inspired by those made at the Savonnerie manufactory, founded by Louis XIII in 1627. The tapestry that can be seen through the doorway is a copy of one commissioned by the king and executed by tapestry weavers at the royal Gobelins manufactory.
Mrs. Thorne commented on the woeful lack of chairs in the interiors of this period, noting that ladies of the nobility, forced to stand for hours at receptions, often were carried out in a faint, while those who were royal enough to sit in the presence of the king suffered on uncomfortable little stools.
An anachronism found here, as in other rooms Mrs. Thorne designed, are the bouquets of calla lilies, a type of lily that was developed in the early twentieth century and enjoyed great popularity in the 1920s and 1930s.
This room measures 18 3/4 x 31 x 23 3/4 inches.