A31: Tennessee Entrance Hall, 1835

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):

31: Tennessee Entrance Hall, 1835
Mrs. Thorne modeled this interior after the hall of the Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, who served two terms as the seventh president of the United States, from 1829 to 1837. During Jackson’s second term, a fire severely damaged the original building on his 625-acre property outside Nashville, prompting him to build a new residence on the foundations of the old. Hero of the expedition against the Creek Indians in 1813 and of the Battle of New Orleans against the British in 1815, Jackson as a political figure aligned himself with the common man against moneyed interests, but his own style of life was that of the traditional Southern gentleman. The Hermitage is a Greek Revival mansion consisting of a central porticoed pavilion with flanking wings. The main portion of the residence is distinguished by handsome white columns and wide verandas outside and spacious rooms inside.
The most striking feature of Mrs. Thorne’s model, and of the actual hall, is the Neoclassical spiral staircase. The wallpaper is in the mode of, though not identical to, that used in the original; Mrs. Thorne copied a similar pattern in the Art Institute of Chicago. This paper, made by the French firm of Dufour (see A–6: New Hampshire Dining Room, 1760), depicts “The French in Egypt” and dates from 1814. The furniture in the hall is of the late classical type popular in the 1830s and 1840s known as pillar and scroll. The sofa is in the Empire style, the chair along the left wall in the Directoire style (see E–25: French Bathroom and Boudoir of the Revolutionary Period, 1793–1804). The console and table were inspired by actual pieces in the Hermitage.
Through the door at the left can be glimpsed a study furnished with copies of other pieces from the Hermitage, including a table and desk chair in the eighteenth-century Chippendale style. They were made from the wood of the frigate USS Constitution, nicknamed “Old Ironsides,” which earned its laurels in the 1812 war against the British. The gilt-bronze mantel clock undoubtedly replicates nineteenth-century French examples made for export to the United States. Such clock designs included depictions of beloved figures like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. Over the mantel hangs a portrait of Jackson. The paper stand holds a replica of an 1835 newspaper.
This room measures 14 1/8 x 14 1/2 x 30 1/4 inches.