A27: Virginia Kitchen, 18th Century

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):

27: Virginia Kitchen, 18th Century
Mrs. Thorne modeled this interior after the kitchen of the reconstructed Governor’s Palace complex in Williamsburg. First settled in 1633 and later named capital first of the colony and then of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Williamsburg lost its central role after Richmond became the capital in 1780. Among the most important buildings in the town was the Governor’s Palace, constructed between 1708 and 1720, which served as the residence of seven royal governors and the first two Commonwealth governors, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson (see A–26: Virginia Dining Room, c. 1800). After the removal of the capital to Richmond, the palace served as a military hospital until it was destroyed by fire in 1781.
In 1931, some five years after John D. Rockefeller, Jr., had embarked on the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, work was begun on the reconstruction of the Governor’s Palace on its original site. Based on archaeological and documentary evidence, including a plan of the first floor drawn by Jefferson, the reconstructed palace was completed in 1934, although additional research and new information have led to continuing modifications. A critical source for the re-creation of the interior as it would have been in the 1770s was the inventory of furnishings and personal belongings taken after the death of British governor Norborne Berkeley, the Baron de Botetourt.
The kitchen of the Governor’s Palace was located in one of the outlying structures, close to the scullery, smokehouse, salthouse, wine cellar, and kitchen garden. It was very near a canal, which in the summer was stocked with fish and in winter became a source of ice. An orchard also was close at hand.
Since much of the menial work took place in the scullery, the kitchen itself, as reflected in Mrs. Thorne’s interior, was relatively free of clutter. The cooking was done in the great central fireplace, with its hanging crane and dutch oven used for baking in front of an open fire. The kinds of metal cooking utensils hanging on the mantel would have been made locally. Illustrated articles on the Williamsburg restoration became the source for many of the pieces in Mrs. Thorne’s model, including the cupboard, table, Windsor chairs, ladder-back chair against the left wall, banister-back chair to the left of the dresser and high chair to the right, and closed cupboard at the foot of the stairs. The stairs would have led to a storeroom. A butter churn stands to the right of the door, which opens onto a kitchen garden. Through the window at the right can be seen an iron pot in which soft soap would have been made over an outside fire.
Since the kitchen was at some distance from the formal dining room in the main house, the food was carried to the table in covered dishes. This would have been no small task on occasions such as the following, described by the Baron de Botetourt in a letter of 1769: “Fifty-two dined with me yesterday and I expect at least that number today.”
This room measures 10 x 20 x 20 1/2 inches.