Stair Parts Fig. 311 Ceiling at The Boughton House
Contemporary with this kind of ceiling was a treatment entirely different, which was in vogue in great houses during the reigns of Charles II., James II., and William and Mary ; this was the painting of immense plain surfaces with allegorical, mythological, and scriptural subjects. Old Buckingham House had a large ceiling of the kind over the principal staircase (Stair Parts Fig. 308) ; and the walls were painted so as to produce the effect of architectural perspective. This fashion is intimately associated with the name of Verrio, an Italian painter, who was brought to England by Charles II. He and his assistant and successor Laguerre are the best known of those who worked in this line of decoration, for they are immortalised by Pope, who describes how in a great house, being summoned "to all the pride of prayer" in the chapel
"On painted ceilings you devoutly stare
Where sprawl the saints of Verrio and Laguerre."
But there were several other artists engaged by wealthy noblemen to do similar work ; among them was Cheron at Boughton House, and Lanscroon at Drayton, both in Northamptonshire.
Stair Parts Fig 312 Ceiling at The Canons Ashby Northamptonshire
But Verrio was by far the busiest of all, and did a vast amount of work at Windsor, Hampton Court, and Burghley House, among other places. Over the grand staircase at Hampton Court (Stair Parts Fig. 309) the composition which occupies the ceiling is brought down on to the walls. This device was sometimes adopted with the view, apparently, of bringing ceiling and walls into one scheme ; but although the technique is clever, the effect is rather confusing. The examples from Boughton House (Stair Parts Figs. 310, 311) show a simpler and more intelligible treatment. Evelyn frequently mentions Verrio with high commendation, and his work and that of his school is extremely clever, and were it more easily seen and with less physical discomfort, doubtless it would beget more admiration than it actually does. Verrio died in 1707 and Laguerre twenty years later. Their tradition was carried on for another ten or twelve years by Sir James Thornhill, but it then died out, and painting on ceilings was confined to small panels.
It was chiefly in the larger houses that ornamental ceilings were now introduced. In those of ordinary size, and those built on speculation to let to tenants, the ceilings were for the most part plain. Where design was employed it became less ambitious, and during the second quarter of the eighteenth century it produced such comparatively simple work as that in a house in Bishopsgate Street Without (Stair Parts Fig. 307), or that in the Spenser room at Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire (Stair Parts Fig. 312). Cottesbrooke House, in the same county, has some delicate work much the same type (Stair Parts Fig. 313).
Stair Parts Fig 313 Ceiling at The Cottes Brooke Hall Northants
During the last half of the century, where ornament was applied to ceilings at all, it partook of the extreme delicacy an refinement associated with the name of the brothers Adam. The modelling was in low relief, but was done with great care and minuteness, and the flow of the thin lines of ornament was studied with close attention. This type is exemplified in the ceiling from a house in Wimpole Street (Stair Parts Fig. 314), and there a many such ceilings left in that neighbourhood, especially Harley Street, which in its early days was inhabited many distinguished people ; William Pitt, Viscount Bridport, and Admiral Lord Keith did much to shape the history of their time; Allan Ramsay, portrait painter to George III., may stand for Art, and James Stuart, author of the "Antiquities of Athens," may represent architecture and archxology. At present these streets are more particularly associated with the pursuit of medicine; their inhabitants are no less celebrated than those of old, but their fame is of a special kind, and those who go to consult them on matters of life and death may well be excused if they spare no thought for the decoration which covers the ceilings above their heads.
Stair Parts Fig. 314 Ceiling at The Wimple Street London
The work of the latter part of the eighteenth century was so dominated by the influence of the Adams that a few further examples of their designs may be of interest. In the staircase from a house in Mansfield Street (Fig. 315) all superfluous ornament has been eliminated, so much so that one almost longs for something less chaste and cold. In some moods and to some temperaments Venus is more attractive than Diana.