A8: Massachusetts Bedroom, c. 1801

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):

8: Massachusetts Bedroom, c. 1801
This elegant bedroom of the Federal period was inspired by one of the interiors in Oak Hill, a mansion on the outskirts of Salem in what is now known as Peabody. Its architect was Samuel McIntire, son of a Salem cabinetmaker and woodcarver and himself an accomplished craftsman. McIntire’s chief patron was a wealthy merchant, Elias Hasket Derby, for whose daughter Elizabeth, the wife of Captain Nathaniel West, McIntire designed this house, as well as much of its furniture. McIntire had been greatly impressed by the architectural style of the Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio (see E–7: English Drawing Room of the Early Georgian Period, 1730s), as well as by the Neoclassical designs of Robert Adam (see E–10: English Dining Room of the Georgian Period, 1770–90). These influences can be seen in the quiet lines and elegant decoration of this interior, most specifically in the garlands, sheaves of wheat, and baskets of flowers that decorate the mantel, doorheads, and cornice, as well as in the furniture. The decorations were either carved or cast in composition (a mixture of resin and whiting).
The bedroom, as well as two other rooms from the Oak Hill mansion, are housed in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, along with many pieces of furniture from the Derby and West families that formed part of the original decoration. Mrs. Thorne had many of the furnishings copied from these pieces. A number are depicted in Edwin J. Hipkiss’s Three McIntire Rooms (1931), including the bed, armchair, painted chair, chandelier, and banjo clock on the rear wall.
Also original to Oak Hill are the unique mirror and the bow-front commode in the Hepplewhite style (see E–9: English Drawing Room of the Georgian Period, 1770–1800). They have been attributed to Boston cabinetmaker John Seymour, as have the bed and painted chair. The Art Institute owns a Hepplewhite painted chair that once belonged to the Derby family, which is similar to the two displayed by the windows of this room.
Mrs. Thorne painted the material used for the window curtains and for the canopy of the poster bed in this interior, imitating the handpainted cotton toile popular as a drapery material at the turn of the nineteenth century. Apparently, Elizabeth West took a deep interest in the furnishing of her home, achieving a harmonious and appealing effect that must have struck a responsive chord in Mrs. Thorne.
This room measures 11 1/4 x 21 1/2 x 23 inches.