A20: Virginia Dining Room, 1758 c. 1940

This is Narcissa Niblack Thorne's miniature Virginia Dining Room, created in 1940s Chicago. Imagine Thorne, perched over this tiny room, obsessively recreating 1758 Virginia. Each object perfectly rendered. I can see her, adjusting the tiny chairs, maybe muttering about the wallpaper, wishing she could get the light just so. It's a whole world in a box, right? Like a stage set, but more intimate, more controlled. The light is so still, like captured. What I find interesting in this work is not just the craft, but the ambition. The drive to remake reality in miniature. It makes me think of other artists who build worlds, like Charles Wilson Peale, or Joseph Cornell... It's like they're saying, "I can make this. I can hold it in my hands." It's an act of love, but also of power. And it’s a way of getting close to the past, of touching it, owning it, and that’s an impulse I understand.