A17: Pennsylvania Kitchen, 1752

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):

17: Pennsylvania Kitchen, 1752
Although it dates from roughly the same period as the preceding rooms, this model suggests an entirely different kind of life. For this room, Mrs. Thorne drew upon elements from two interiors—originally part of the Jerg Muler house in the town of Millbach—that are installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Muler was the town’s miller and appears to have enjoyed a comfortable standard of living. The house was typical of ones built by the Pennsylvania Dutch (more properly, Germans from the Rhineland who had originally immigrated to North America in the early eighteenth century and who often were members of the Mennonite, Amish, Moravian, or Dunker sects). In the twentieth century, the Pennsylvania Dutch were associated with the boldly colored, cheerful motifs—flowers, hearts, trees of life, birds, circular disks, and stars—painted on their houses, barns, and furniture. Some of these motifs decorate the barns that form part of the scenery visible through the door at the right.
Among the most striking features of this interior is the mantel beam, scaled to represent an original that would have been almost ten feet long and hewn from a single piece of wood. The handsome corner staircase is very different in its placement and design from its counterpart in a similar New England cottage (see A–12: Cape Cod Living Room, 1750–1850). Also distinctive in character are the door to the left of the staircase, with its raised and carved panels and wrought-iron hinges of regional design, and the door to the right (still known as a Dutch door), whose top portion can be opened independently of the lower part.
In general Pennsylvania Dutch furnishings tend to resemble other country furniture of the period, although their decoration is usually distinctive. Made of oak, pine, poplar, or tulipwood, the pieces often were painted green or brown and embellished with brightly colored designs like the animals and stylized flowers that enliven the dower chest at the left, which bears the date 1797. The shelves of the two sturdy country-style dressers display pewter, brass, and pottery modeled after the highly glazed ware in green and red tones produced in Pennsylvania. The gleaming kitchen utensils and implements included around the fireplace reflect originals that would have been made in the village forge. The decorated glass standing on the center table replicates an original by Heinrich Steigel, a German immigrant who settled in Lancaster County and became known for his glassware, painted with flowers or birds or engraved after the fashion of his homeland; indeed, his pieces are barely distinguishable from ones executed in Germany.
The room measures 9 1/2 x 24 1/8 x 19 1/4 inches.