Stair Parts Fig. 303 Chimney Piece By Flaxman
But return to the question of fireplaces, and more particularly to the chimney-pieces which surrounded them. The method adapted in William III.'s time of having merely a bold moulding round the opening, tended to establish the practice of having chimney-pieces of one stage in height instead of two. In Jacobean time most of the large chimney-pieces reached from the floor to the ceiling; so they did in the mid-seventeenth century under Inigo Jones and John Webb, although a few of their designs show one stage only. When the “ Designs of Inigo Jones” published by Kent in 1727, they gave an impetus again to the two-stage type, such as that shown in Stair Parts Fig. 170; but smaller and less pretentious patterns were frequently adopted, of which a typical example is shown in Stair Parts Fig. 301 ; here a marble slab surrounds the opening, and is in its turn surrounded by a small wood moulding and surmounted by a flat frieze and a cornice which forms the mantel shelf. This type held the field all through the eighteenth century, sometimes plain, sometimes enriched, as in the example from the Deanery at Wells (Stair Parts Fig. 302). A variation, all in marble, is shown in Stair Parts Fig. 304, from a house in Carey Street.
Stair Parts Fig. 304 Marble Chimney Piece In the 60 Carey Street London
Stair Parts Fig. 305 Chimney Piece Robert Adam
Stair Parts Fig. 306 Ceiling at The Law Courts Northampton
Stair Parts Fig. 307 Ceiling at The Bishop Gate Street London
Under the influence of the brothers Adam, detail of exquisite delicacy was introduced, including panels of well-moulded figures. This ornament was sometimes carved in marble or wood, but still more frequently worked in composition and applied to the woodwork. An example by Robert Adam is shown in Stair Parts Fig. 305, and a design by Flaxman in Stair Parts Fig. 303.
We have already seen in Chapter V. how the busy ceilings of the Jacobean type changed into the coffered ceilings of Inigo Jones and Webb, who established a type which held the field, under Wren and his successors, well into the eighteenth century. The general tendency was to increase the relief of the plasterwork, to imitate nature instead of conventionalising it; to work on the same lines which Grinling Gibbons was following with his carving in wood. The result was that the plasterwork had frequently to be modelled on wire which formed the stems of the leaves, and much of it was completely detached from the surface of the ceiling which it adorned. A very fine example of this treatment is to be seen in the Courts of justice at Northampton Stair Parts Fig. 306.
Stair Parts Fig. 308 Ceiling at The Old Buckingham House
Stair Parts Fig. 309 Ceiling at The Hampton Court Palace
Stair Parts Fig. 310 Ceiling at The Boughton House