"It's something about being dominant over something that is so charming and diminutive," said Lindsay Mican Morgan, curator of an appealing exhibit of miniature room displays at the Art Institute of Chicago.

The 68 rooms showcase European, American and Asian interiors and furnishings from the 17th century through the 1930s. They were largely created by master craftsmen commissioned between 1933 and 1937 by Chicago socialite Narcissa Ward Thorne who gifted the collection to the museum in 1966.