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]).
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.
Fig. 313.—Part of Ceiling, Cottesbrooke Hall, Northants.
Fig. 314.—CEILING FROM WIMPOLE STREET, LONDON.