A7: New Hampshire Entrance Hall, 1799

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):

7: New Hampshire Entrance Hall, 1799
Mrs. Thorne modeled this interior on the entrance hall of the John Pierce mansion in Portsmouth, attributed to the distinguished architect Charles Bulfinch, who was responsible for such Boston landmarks as the Beacon Monument, the statehouse, and the courthouse. Bulfinch was strongly influenced by the work of the Adam brothers, Robert and James (see E–10: English Dining Room of the Georgian Period, 1770–90), to which he was first exposed through books and then directly in England. The version of the Adam’s elegant Neoclassical designs for architecture, interior decoration, and furniture that Bulfinch helped popularize in America is usually referred to as the Federal style. By the 1780s, wealthy Bostonians had begun to import Adam furniture and decorative objects to furnish their splendid, newly constructed houses. Residences designed by Bulfinch were assessed at the time at around $8,000, and at least one was valued at more than three times that amount.
The Neoclassical influence is easily discerned here in the elegant composition of curved and rectangular elements and in the restrained and sophisticated treatment of the walls, with their dado, fluted pilasters, and cornice. Mrs. Thorne derived the banisters, newel post, and painted stair runner from the Handbook of the Concord Antiquarian Society (1937). The delicate carving—particularly under the soffit of the stairs—indicates the great skill of local craftsmen who had been trained originally as shipwrights. The overall white color scheme for the woodwork and plaster walls reflects a post-Revolutionary fashion.
The unique curved settee in the Hepplewhite style (see E–9: English Drawing Room of the Georgian Period, 1770–1800) reflects an original most likely designed by Bulfinch himself for this particular space. The piece, which is mahogany with satinwood inlays, was constructed in 1799 and remained in its original location until 1948, when descendants of the Pierce family sold it to Henry Francis du Pont. Also Hepplewhite in manner are the two candlestands flanking the doorway. On the floor is a petit-point version of a seventeenth-century Tabriz rug. Although oriental rugs appear in New England inventories before the mid-seventeenth century, they were expensive and therefore rare. After the mid-eighteenth century, Americans could avail themselves of more reasonably priced European carpeting, including that from Wilton (with a pile of cut loops) and Brussels (with a pile of uncut loops). The most elegant English carpeting was handwoven at the Axminster manufactory; it came in a variety of designs, including copies of Turkish examples. Carpets began to be produced in America during the last decade of the eighteenth century.
This room measures 11 x 16 1/2 x 17 inches.