E25: French Bathroom and Boudoir of the Revolutionary Period, 1793–1804

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):

25: French Bathroom and Boudoir of the Revolutionary Period, 1793–1804
In 1792 the French monarchy was abolished. Three years later, the National Assembly was replaced by the Directorate. The succeeding decade saw the rise to power of Napoleon Bonaparte. He became consul in 1799 and emperor in 1804.
This interior reflects the republican phase of the Directorate and Consulate, during which the ancient Roman symbols of republicanism were incorporated into the idiom of decoration. Many of the classical elements in such rooms, like the sunken circular bathtub and skylight (oculus) above, the decorative panels, the furniture, as well as the colors—earth reds, yellows, and blacks—were inspired by the frescoes, mosaics, and objects uncovered in the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum earlier in the century.
Mrs. Thorne intended these rooms to represent the tumultuous changes that characterize this period: “Everything must be different. . . . Furniture forms became simple, modified with classical symbols such as crossed arrows, lyres, and laurel wreaths. Draperies of plain materials in strong, pure colors were hung over poles in severe folds. . . . It was an interesting period proclaiming. . . the new idea of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.’”
The attachment to republican simplicity did not last long, she noted, because “there are always new rich who want to display their wealth, and such architects as [François-Joseph] Bélanger were soon building exquisite houses and designing elaborate interiors.” Mrs. Thorne used as the inspiration of these rooms a portfolio of Bélanger’s watercolor renderings for a commission that she found at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.
The bathroom furniture is meant to be of fruitwood and ebony. The gilt candle brackets have been embellished with a lyre and swans (later, Empress Josephine adopted the swan as her emblem). The painted pieces in the bedroom, like the inset panels in the bathroom, reflect a Pompeian influence. Bélanger had visited England and was an admirer of Robert Adam, who had made Neoclassicism fashionable in England (see E-10: English Dining Room of the Georgian Period, 1770–90). Ivory miniatures of Napoleon and Josephine are set on the table in front of the window, as is a miniature metal statue of the future emperor.
The bathroom measures 13 7/8 x 23 x 12 3/4 inches.