effective, is to be seen in the audit room at Boughton House (Fig.
286). It consists of boards nailed vertically to the wall, having the
joints covered with a moulding; below is a skirting, and above is a
frieze and cornice.
Wood panelling was gradually superseded by panels formed in plaster on
the plastered walls. Gibb’s drawings have already afforded examples of
this treatment (Figs. 166–169), and any book of the eighteenth century
on house design will supply others. Stoneleigh Abbey, Kenilworth, has
panels of unusual richness (Fig. 288), and a house in Queen Square,
Bath, by one of the Woods, has some delicately modelled panels on the
staircase (Fig. 289). The drawback to this method of decoration is
that, being rather ambitious in aim, it challenges criticism much more
definitely than does simple panelling. It is conceivable that one
eventually might tire of seeing the same youth piping to the same old
man, and the same lady for ever playing the same organ without looking
at her notes.
But a more radical change in wall decoration was to come in the shape
of wall-papers. The early history of this method of adorning rooms
has not been fully explored, but it seems clear that already in the
seventeenth century sheets of paper covered with stencilled patterns
had been pasted on to walls, or perhaps on to the panels into which
they were divided. This was a laborious and by no means cheap process,
but it contained the germ of the procedure which is so widely adopted
to-day. Another and even more effective step was taken when Chinese
papers were introduced (Fig. 290). These papers consisted of rolls,
each printed with a portion of a large design, which required some
five or six pieces to complete it. It was probably of such sets that
the vivacious Lady Mary Wortley Montague, most celebrated of blue
stockings, wrote to her daughter from Louvere, in 1749, to say, “I have
heard the fame of paper hangings, and had some thoughts of sending for
a suite, but was informed that they were as dear as damask is here,
which put an end to my curiosity.” In some cases curiosity outweighed
thriftiness, and the suites still remain in a few old houses; here
and there some of the original rolls still exist, rolls which for
some reason or other were not used, and which have luckily escaped
destruction. Chinese papers became fashionable, and it is not difficult
to imagine the process of evolution from rolls--each bearing part of a
large design either of trees and flowers, or of a landscape or a figure
subject, after the manner of tapestry--to other rolls all printed alike
and forming a continuous pattern, with the parts duly repeated, which
should cover the whole walls with decoration of a sort. The advantages
of the new method were obvious: it was cheap; and although at first
the paper was applied to canvas nailed to battens on the wall, yet
eventually it was placed on the wall itself, and thus did away with
the spaces between the walls and the panelling or tapestry, where dirt
or spiders or more noxious insects could harbour; rough surfaces were
rendered smooth, joints between wood frames and stone or brick walls
were filled with plaster, and draughts were lessened. Most of these
advantages were obtained by plastered walls ornamented with panels,
but plain surfaces covered with paper were cheaper, and gave greater
scope for the unrestricted hanging of pictures and prints as the taste
for such things developed. Then, again, more and more people lived in
hired houses, and with every fresh tenant new papers could readily be
pasted over the old. There was no idea in those days of stripping off
the previous papers; and in dealing with ancient houses as many as
twenty layers of paper have sometimes been found. But our notions of
sanitation have improved, and in the present day everything is removed
down to the plaster before the new paper is hung.
[Illustration: FIG. 290.--A Chinese Paper, Ramsbury,
Wiltshire.]
[Illustration: FIG. 291.--TAPESTRY: SUBJECT, VULCAN AND VENUS.
WOVEN AT MORTLAKE, _circa_ 1620.
In the Victoria and Albert Museum.]
[Illustration: FIG. 292.--Chimney-Piece in the Mayor’s
Parlour, The Town Hall, South Molton, Devonshire.]
The Chinese papers, as already observed, had some affinity in
their subjects to tapestry, and tapestry had been a favourite means
of covering walls from very early times (Figs. 291, 293). In the
seventeenth century it was much in vogue among the rich, both on the
Continent and in England, and a noble form of decoration it is. It
would be beside the mark to recount the history of tapestry weaving at
any length, but it is of interest to know that during the seventeenth
century the English factory at Mortlake was the most renowned in the
world, and produced some of the finest tapestries that have come down
to us. The factory was founded in 1619 by James I., and with it are
connected the names of two families who have already been mentioned
in these pages. The first was that of the Cranes, the other the
Montagus.[86] Sir Francis Crane, who built a house at Stoke Bruerne,
in Northamptonshire (see pp. 174, 176), managed the factory for many
years on behalf of the king, and made a considerable fortune. The
factory flourished under James I. and Charles I., but declined under
the Commonwealth. After the Restoration new vigour was imparted to
it; it passed from the direct patronage of the king and was acquired
in 1674 by the Montagus, whose house at Boughton (see pp. 196–199)
retains many splendid examples from its looms. But by this time the
factory at Gobelins was producing work as fine as that at Mortlake, if
not finer, and this circumstance, together with the declining taste
for tapestries, brought the Mortlake venture to an end in 1703.[87]
Tapestries were at all times chiefly for the wealthy, but early in the
eighteenth century they began to go out of fashion, and were superseded
by the other modes of decoration already described.
[Illustration: FIG. 293.--THE TAPESTRY DRAWING-ROOM, POWIS
CASTLE, MONTGOMERY.]
At the beginning of the eighteenth century fireplaces were, as a rule,
still contrived for the burning of wood logs. They were wide and deep,
and were generally surrounded by a very bold moulding of stone or
marble, like that in the Town Hall at South Molton (Fig. 292). The
panelling of the room was often brought up to the marble, and continued
above it with an additional richness over the fireplace; but sometimes
there was a special margin provided round the large moulding, as in the
case of South Molton. Occasionally it was found convenient to place the
fireplace in a corner of the room, which led to some such ingenious
treatment as that in Fig. 294, which is from a room at Boughton House.
[Illustration: FIG. 294.--Corner Fireplace at Boughton House.]
Open fireplaces like these required fire-dogs on which to place the
logs for the increase of the draught, and a great variety of such
dogs or andirons were produced, varying in character from rich and
admirably modelled specimens like that in the queen’s guard chamber
at Hampton Court (Fig. 295), down to the simplest forms. It was also
necessary to have fire-backs of cast iron to prevent the fire from
eating away the brickwork against which it was piled. The various
iron works in Sussex and elsewhere produced a great quantity of these
backs of all degrees of elaboration. The ornament most frequently
adopted was a shield of arms, either those of the sovereign, or those
of the family who usually warmed themselves at the fire; but the range
of design was considerable, and included floral and figure subjects
(Figs. 296–298), as well as patterns of extreme simplicity. Other
accessories were tongs, bellows, and sometimes a fire shovel. The tongs
were sufficiently stout to enable the logs to be handled; the bellows
produced life in an almost dead fire with wonderful celerity; the
shovel was used to bank up the ashes, which were allowed to accumulate
in a great heap, and thereby preserved warmth during the night.
[Illustration: FIG. 295.--Fire-Dog at Hampton Court, in the
Queen’s Guard Chamber.]
[Illustration: FIG. 296.--Fire-Back and Dogs, Sutton Place.]
[Illustration: FIG. 297.--Fire-Basket at Penshurst, Kent.]
[Illustration: FIG. 298.--Jamb of Fireplace, Abbot’s Hall,
Battle Abbey, Sussex.]
But early in the eighteenth century a rapid change took place in the
kind of fuel consumed, and coal superseded wood. Sea-coal, that is
sea-borne coal, had been in occasional use for many years; now it
was to become universal. The change is curiously indicated in some
inventories of 1720, made for one “Francis Hawes, of London, Esq.,
one of the late directors of the South Sea Company.” When that great
bubble burst Francis Hawes had to be sold up, and in consequence a
complete statement of his affairs had to be prepared. It includes three
inventories, two of manor-houses in the country, and one of a house in
Winchester Street, London. In regard to the point under consideration,
some of the rooms, especially the bedrooms, had iron hearths, dogs,
tongs, bellows, and fire shovels, which were requisite for the
old-fashioned wood fires; others, including the parlours and hall, had
the grates, shovels, tongs, pokers, and fenders requisite for coal
fires.
So, too, had the servants’ hall, whereas the drawing-room had an open
fire. We may, therefore, conclude that the rooms in most frequent use
had the newer contrivances, the most noteworthy of which were the
grates, the pokers (for breaking the coal, and quite unnecessary with
a wood fire), and the fenders. It is clear that in 1720 Francis Hawes
had only partially adopted coal as his fuel, but the use of it quickly
spread, and henceforward we find grates of various kinds in common use.
Some of these were in effect baskets to hold the coal (Fig. 297), and
they were placed in the old openings. Others were so large as to hold
either wood or coal, an intermediate step of which there is an example
at Dyrham, in Gloucestershire. In later years the basket grates gave
way to cast-iron grates which filled the whole width of the recess,
and were built in as fixtures (Figs. 299, 300). Some of the patterns
were delicately modelled and charmingly designed, but as heat-producers
these grates were crude to a degree. They merely held the coal. No
attempt was made to regulate its consumption, or to direct its heat
into the room; a large proportion went up the chimney, and chimneys
were still built of the generous dimensions which had been customary
in the days of wood fires. These generous dimensions were a length of
four or five feet by a width of two or three at the base, gradually
diminishing towards the outlet above the roof. Where the flues passed
through the bedrooms they occupied a large amount of space, but
generally left room at the sides for those deep cupboards which are
often to be found in old houses. The only way to sweep such enormous
shafts was for somebody to clamber up them with a brush. This dirty and
dangerous task was usually imposed upon the chimney sweep’s boy, until
it was prohibited by legislation, but modern fires have flues of such
small size as not to admit the most diminutive boy.
[Illustration: FIG. 299.--Fire-Grate at Kew Palace.]
[Illustration: FIG. 300.--Fire-Grate at Kew Palace.]
When huge fires were customary, they warmed the huge flues above them,
and down-draughts were prevented; but when the same huge flues were
warmed only by a basketful of coal, there was no longer the same upward
draught, and the fires began to smoke. To remedy this, new fireplaces
were made rather smaller, and the flues were slightly contracted;
but the remedy was not effectual, and the next step, taken towards
the end of the eighteenth century, was to fill up the large opening,
and thereby restrict the access of air to the space occupied by the
fire, and thus came into being the first of our modern fire-grates,
which carry no suggestion with them of the ancient open fire on the
hearth. This form of grate was an improvement, but it was wasteful
and inefficient, and was at length superseded by the numerous modern
contrivances which minimise the consumption of fuel, and direct more of
the heat into the room and less up the flue. It would be rash to say
that they have done away with smoky chimneys, but at any rate they have
made them the exception rather than the rule.
The inventories of Francis Hawes are interesting in other ways than
in marking the change from the ancient wood fires to the modern coal
fires: they tell us of the manner in which his rooms were adorned and
furnished. It would be outside the scope of the present inquiry to
enter into these details at any length, but a few of the words thus
spoken direct from the past may be worth listening to. The parlours
of the London house were apparently panelled or otherwise decorated
with some fixed material, since no mention is made of hangings. They
had chimney-glasses, sconces of brass or glass, and curtains to the
windows: of furniture one had two card-tables, ten red Turkey-leather
chairs, a leather screen, sixteen pictures, and a painted cloth for
the floor--not a very elaborate furnishing. The other parlour had a
pier glass and marble slab, a scrutoire, six cane chairs, two Dutch
chairs, a leather dressing-chair, two tables, a small nest of drawers,
eight pictures, and a small carpet. The effect must have been rather
bare according to modern standards, but these have gone to the other
extreme, with the result that many rooms are now overcrowded with
furniture. Upstairs one of the rooms must have been a gallery, for
it had no chairs, but was full of curios and _objets d’art_. The
bedrooms of all the houses were also sparsely furnished. They nearly
all had large bedsteads, evidently four-posters, with furniture of
different kinds, camlet lined with silk, yellow mohair, green or
crimson harratine, green serge, and other materials. The walls were
hung in most cases with materials of the same kind, blue china, crimson
harratine, tapestry, mohair, or Irish stitch and Dutch matting. There
were curtains to the windows. One of the smaller bedrooms had but a
table and dressing-glass, a couple of chairs and a box; another had
a “bewreau” and a card-table in addition. The larger ones had two
tables, half a dozen chairs, stools, a nest of drawers, a bookcase, and
a number of pictures. It is noteworthy how seldom mention is made of
a basin or even of a dressing-table with a glass. This confirms what
has already been indicated--that our ancestors of those days spent but
little time upon their toilet. Very few rooms had a carpet but nearly
every one had a hand-bell, some had as many as four.
[Illustration: FIG. 301.--Chimney-Piece in the George Inn,
Winchester.]
[Illustration: FIG. 302.--Chimney-Piece in the Deanery, Wells.]
[Illustration: FIG. 303.--Design for a Chimney-Piece, by
Flaxman.
From the Ionides Collection in the V. and A. M.]
[Illustration: FIG. 304.--Marble Chimney-Piece, 60 Carey
Street, London.]
But to return to the question of fireplaces, and more particularly
to the chimney-pieces which surrounded them. The method adopted 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” were published by Kent in 1727, they gave an impetus again to
the two-stage type, such as that shown in Fig. 170; but smaller and
less pretentious patterns were frequently adopted, of which a typical
example is shown in 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 (Fig.
302). A variation, all in marble, is shown in Fig. 304, from a house in
Carey Street.
[Illustration: FIG. 305.--Design for a Chimney-Piece at
Shardiloes House, 1761, by Robert Adam.
In the Soane Museum.]
[Illustration: FIG. 306.--CEILING AT THE LAW COURTS,
NORTHAMPTON.]
[Illustration: FIG. 307.--Ceiling at No. 16 Bishopsgate Street
Without, London.
Now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.]
Under the influence of the brothers Adam, detail of exquisite
delicacy was introduced, including panels of well-modelled 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 Fig. 305, and a design by Flaxman in
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 (Fig.
306).
[Illustration: FIG. 308.--OLD BUCKINGHAM HOUSE. THE STAIRCASE,
WITH PAINTED CEILING AND WALLS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 309.--HAMPTON COURT PALACE. THE GRAND
STAIRCASE, WITH PAINTED CEILING AND WALLS.]
[Illustration: FIG. 310.--Part of a Painted Ceiling, 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 (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. 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 (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 (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.
[Illustration: FIG. 311.--Part of Ceiling over the Staircase,
Boughton House.]
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 (Fig. 307), or
that in the Spenser room at Canons Ashby, in Northamptonshire (Fig.
312). Cottesbrooke House, in the same county, has some delicate work of
much the same type (Fig. 313).
[Illustration: FIG. 312.--Part of Ceiling in the Spenser Room,
Canons Ashby, Northamptonshire.]
During the last half of the century, where ornament was applied to
ceilings at all, it partook of the extreme delicacy and 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 (Fig.
314), and there are many such ceilings left in that neighbourhood,
especially in Harley Street, which in its early days was inhabited by
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
archæology. 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.
[Illustration: FIG. 313.--Part of Ceiling, Cottesbrooke Hall,
Northants.]
[Illustration: FIG. 314.--CEILING FROM WIMPOLE 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.
But restraint is ever commendable, and restraint marks most of Adam’s
work. It is present in the doorway at Harewood House (Fig. 316) and in
the two chimney-pieces, one from Belcombe and one from Bedford Square,
figured in the illustrations 317, 318. In these it will be noticed that
overmantels are replaced by designs worked on the wall itself. Their
interest depends almost entirely upon grace of composition and skill
in execution, and derives nothing from aptness of association with the
houses or their occupants. In this respect the ornament differs from
that of earlier days, when it was usually adapted from the family coat
of arms; but the time had now come when houses were more often built to
let to unknown tenants than as homes for particular families. In the
drawing-room at Kedleston (Fig. 319) the treatment again strikes a note
of simplicity and severity--a note which is seldom so well maintained
in the disposition of the pictures and the choice of furniture as it is
in this case. The ceiling and the great cove beneath it are filled with
that flowing and delicate ornament which demands great accuracy of line
and equal care in modelling its low relief.