Fig. 308.—OLD BUCKINGHAM HOUSE. THE STAIRCASE, with Painted Ceiling and Walls.
Fig. 309.—HAMPTON COURT PALACE. THE GRAND STAIRCASE, with Painted Ceiling and Walls.
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.