Kitchen Cabinets · Georgian & Colonial Revival
Thorne Miniature Room: Pennsylvania Kitchen, 1752
A 1:12-scale Thorne Room of a Pennsylvania farmhouse kitchen of 1752, with a large cooking hearth, plank walls, an open dresser and simple painted cupboards.
Design characteristics
Colonial kitchens were working rooms built around a large hearth, with storage on open shelves and in simple board cupboards. This miniature shows the essentials: a wide fireplace with a plain beam mantel, an open dresser for pewter and pottery, and walls of vertical boards. It is the origin of much of what people now call farmhouse style. The details are plain and sturdy, which makes them easy to adapt to simple cabinetry today.
Classification
- Category
- Kitchen Cabinets
- Material
- Pine
- Motifs
- Plate rack, Board and batten
- Model made
- c. 1940
- Maker or designer
- Designed by Narcissa Niblack Thorne American, 1882–1966
- Recorded medium
- Miniature room, mixed media
- Dimensions
- External: 50.8 × 113.1 × 62.9 cm (20 × 44 1/2 × 24 3/4 in.); Internal (main room only): 24.5 × 64.2 × 49.6 cm (9 5/8 × 25 1/4 × 19 1/2 in.)
- Evidence
- Museum miniature room (scale model)
- Source
- Art Institute of Chicago
Architectural context
Symmetry, classical proportions and refined raised-panel woodwork. Britain and colonial America · original c. 1714–1830; revival c. 1876–1955.
