E22: French Provincial Bedroom of the Louis XV Period, 18th 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):

22: French Provincial Bedroom of the Louis XV Period, 18th Century
“This bedroom of a country house in Normandy represents the provincial interpretation of the style of Louis XV,” wrote Mrs. Thorne. She intended this interior to show the way in which a growing middle class outside of Paris adapted some of the innovations in comfort and style characteristic of Louis XV’s reign for their relatively modest homes.
A striving for beauty is demonstrated in the richly carved armoire against the left wall and in the sprigged wallpaper supplementing the paneling of the back wall. Wallpaper printed by hand from wooden blocks had been in use in England since the sixteenth century; in France it became fashionable in the early eighteenth century. By the 1770s, wallpaper designed and made in France was much in vogue.
The curtains and chair coverings are examples of what was then a new process, the decoration of cotton using engraved copperplates. First employed in England in the 1750s, the technique was introduced into France in the 1770s by a manufacturer who established his factory in the town of Jouy – hence the name of the product, “toiles [textiles] de Jouy.” The curtains draped over the alcove enclosing the bed were functional: at night they were closed tightly to keep out drafts.
Mrs. Thorne decorated the room with pictures, faïence ware, and small ornaments acquired during a tour of seacoast towns in Normandy and Brittany. Her observations on the tour led her to add the various objects of religious significance. “These rooms always reflect the devout character of a seafaring people,” she wrote. “You usually find a statue of the Virgin, a prie-dieu, and a crucifix.” About this room, she wrote touchingly, “There is a quality of homelike comfort permeating these rustic rooms which gives you a sense of peace. . . . While working in my studios, at times the irritations and problems took away the joy of the task. When I found myself overtired and quite fed-up I would uncover the little Normandy bedroom and mentally creep in to find the peace of simple surroundings.”
This room measures 11 x 19 1/2 x 17 1/2 inches.