A26: Virginia Dining Room, c. 1800

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):

26: Virginia Dining Room, c. 1800
Mrs. Thorne designated this interior as “Jeffersonian,” although she was careful not to represent it as a model of the dining room at Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia, Thomas Jefferson’s residence from his twenties until the end of his life. Jefferson began to build Monticello in 1772, bringing his young wife, Martha, there before the house was completed. In the course of the next eight years, he became a delegate to the Continental Congress, governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, and, in 1800, third president of the United States. A man of extraordinarily wide interests, Jefferson mastered many disciplines, including horticulture, music, and architecture. His love of classical architecture was intensified during the five years he spent as a diplomat in France. “From Lyons to Nîmes,” he wrote, “I have been nourished with the remains of Roman grandeur.” Seeking to “improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation . . . and procure them. . . praise,” he designed the new capitol of Virginia after the Maison Carrée, the Roman temple at Nîmes. He also designed the University of Virginia (which he founded) according to classical architectural principles. Monticello also benefited from Jefferson’s time abroad, inspiring him to add the now-famous octagonal dome and outward-facing portico.
Mrs. Thorne’s desire to portray Jefferson’s skill as an architect and innovator led her to include in this interior several features from Monticello that have been attributed to his ingenuity. The side doors of the actual mantel communicate directly with the wine cellar. The three sections of the window along the left wall reflect an invention by Jefferson to facilitate control of ventilation. He is also credited with the folding doors at the rear that lead to a representation of the celebrated “tea room” extension, which houses the “busts in plaister” of four figures revered by Jefferson—George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Franklin, and John Paul Jones—executed by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon.
Although the original furnishings of Monticello have long been dispersed, Mrs. Thorne decorated this room with copies of originals in the Empire style from the first two decades of the nineteenth century. The banquet table is a replica of Jefferson’s, while the chairs and side tables copy pieces in the style of Duncan Phyfe (see A–14: Pennsylvania Drawing Room, 1834–36) dating from between 1800 and 1820. The crystal chandelier and brackets are modeled after ones at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the crystal pieces on the table replicate originals in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. The needlepoint rug follows an Empire pattern of French origin.
Jefferson, who died in 1826, spent the last seventeen years of his life at Monticello. “My mornings are devoted to correspondence,” he wrote. “From breakfast to dinner, I am in my shops, my garden, or on horseback among my farms; from dinner to dark I give to society and friends; and from candle light to early bed-time, I read.”
This room measures 13 x 22 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches.