Illus. 403.—Landing and Stairs in Lee Mansion, Marblehead, 1768.
The woodwork is probably the finest in Boston, and is attributed, with the building, to Bulfinch. The doorway in Illustration [401] is from the back parlor of the house. The door is mahogany, and the carved woodwork of the frame is in a severely classical design. The anthemion figures upon the pilasters and in the capital, and the design of the frieze is beautiful in its severity. The house was built in 1818.
In his “Complete Body of Architecture” Isaac Ware says of the chimney-piece: “No common room, plain or elegant, could be constituted without it. No article in a well-finished room is so essential. The eye is immediately cast upon it on entering, and the place of sitting down is naturally near it. By this means it becomes the most eminent thing in the finishing of an apartment.”
The mantelpiece in Illustration [402] is in the banquet hall of the house built in 1768, upon generous plans, by Col. Jeremiah Lee in Marblehead. The depth of the chimney is in the rear, and the mantel is almost flush with the panelled walls. It is painted white like the other woodwork, and is richly ornamented with hand carving, in rococo designs, with garlands of fruit and flowers in high relief, after the fashion of the time, and has a plain panel over the narrow shelf, which rests upon carved brackets.
Illustration [403] shows the beautiful landing at the head of the stairway in the Lee mansion, with the large window and Corinthian pilasters, and the wonderful old paper, all in tones of gray. The turn of the stairs is seen, and the finely twisted balusters.
Illus. 404.—Stairs in Harrison Gray Otis House, Boston, 1795.