It is interesting to note that the Adam stucco-work has had its day and that there is a return to the Boucher treatment of the ceiling. Sheraton remarks: “Plastered ceilings are supposed to be more common in Britain than in other countries. The manner of finishing ceilings has been various, at different times, in this country. A sort of very heavy ornamented plaster work was formerly introduced, together with pannelled work in heavy mouldings. Within about thirty years since, this kind of ceiling work has been composed in a much lighter style, and variegated with painted panels, often from the heathen mythology, or other poetical subjects. At present some of the most elegant rooms have no plastered ornaments in their ceilings, but are painted to imitate an open sky, with some faint scattering of clouds.”
The walls were hung with paper.
The window generally reached to the floor, with small panes of glass, from four to eight in a sash. The window was also furnished with a blind. “The most fashionable blinds,” Sheraton assures us, “are of wood painted green all except the frame which is of mahogany. The blind part is either composed of upright or horizontal narrow laths ⅛ of an inch thick painted a bright green and which move by means of a lever to any position for admitting more or less light.”
The cornice was painted and japanned, or carved and gilded, and from it hung the draperies.
“Festoon window-curtains,” says Sheraton, “are those which draw up by pullies, and hang down in a swag. These curtains are still in use in bedrooms, not withstanding the general introduction of the French rod curtain in most genteel houses. A festoon window-curtain consists generally of three pulls, but when a window is extensive they have four or five.”
PLATE LVIII
An example of the French rod is shown on Plate [LIX.], No. 1, dated 1803. Sheraton says: “The French window rod is made of brass about ¾ of an inch diameter, having a pulley at the left end and two at the right, one of which is fixed on a pin perpendicular to the rod. At present, they frequently make the French rods of satin wood two to a window to lap past each other about three inches in the centre; so that the curtain draws half on each side separately, or only half of it may be drawn at once; and when they are both drawn out they lap over each other.” The chimney is invariably furnished with a glass. Sheraton says:
“In elegant rooms, the chimney-glass is usually carried to the under side of the cornice of the ceiling; but to reduce the expense of the plate, sometimes a broadish panel is introduced at the top of the glass with a frieze and cornice above all, included in the frame of the glass.
“The most generally approved pilasters for chimney and pier-glasses are those of 3, 5, or 7 reeds, worked bold; but which, in my opinion, still look better by being parted with a ground one-third of the width of the reed which may be matted to relieve the burnished reeds. It is not unusual to have a twisting branch of flowers, or a ribband round the reeds rising upwards, and terminating in some sort of Composite, Corinthian, or Ionic capital. The panel above the glass is sometimes made quite plain and covered with silk as a ground for drapery, tacked under the cornice of the glass to match that of the windows.”