Our Lady, Queen of Angels Miniature Chapel

Mrs. James Ward Thorne, Our Lady Queen of Angels, miniature room, mixed media, Art Institute of Chicago, IL

Narcissa Thorne commissioned Hildreth Meière to design an altarpiece with Madonna and Child for a miniature chapel, Our Lady, Queen of Angels, and to paint the rear wall behind it.1 The scale of the model chapel is three-quarters of an inch to the foot.

As Thorne explained when the model chapel was displayed at the Golden Gate International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1937:

This model. . . gives the Sanctuary and first bay of a Roman Catholic Church designed in Gothic style, showing the influence of the 12th-Century before Gothic ornament became flamboyant.2

Detail of miniature altarpiece and rear wall

Following the San Francisco International Exposition, the miniature chapel with Meière’s altarpiece was displayed at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Mrs. Thorne gave the model to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1941.