E-12: English Drawing Room of the Georgian Period, c. 1800

The sixty-eight Thorne Miniature Rooms enable viewers to glimpse elements of European interiors from the late 13th century to the 1930s and American interiors from the 17th century to the 1930s. Painstakingly constructed on a scale of one inch to one foot, these fascinating models were conceived by Mrs. James Ward Thorne of Chicago and constructed between 1937 and 1940 by master craftsmen according to her specifications. The English Drawing Room of the Georgian Period, c. 1800, reproduced here in detail, was intended to illustrate the late-18th-century Neoclassical style of designer Thomas Sheraton, distinguished by elegant, light shapes and colors. The furniture replicas, made in England, include a harpsichord that is strung with wires attached to moveable ivory keys.