646 



CHIMNEY-PIECE. 



CHIMNEY-SWEEPER. 



840 



some degree of architectural refinement began to be introduced into 

 the habitations of nobles, external dressings constituting a chimney- 

 piece were added to the fire-place. The annexed example of one from 

 Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire, may serve as a type for such internal 



feature where the Gothic style is employed, both on account of its 

 fitness and propriety of character, and the happy union of simplicity 

 with richness. It exhibits the style characteristically as employed for 

 that particular purpose and no other, by those who were familiar with 

 it, and who therefore did not, like some modern Gothic designers, 

 look to tombs and gateways for ideas for chimney-pieces. Some 

 other examples one from the same building, and two from Windsor 

 Castle are given in Pugin's ' Gothic Specimens," all of them very 

 similar in their general character and proportions, in which respect and 

 in regard to compactness and simplicity of composition they accord 

 much more nearly with modern taste, and have a less ' Gothic ' air 

 than the cumbrous and extravagantly ornamented chimney-pieces in 

 the Renaissance style of the Continent and our own Elizabethan. In 

 these the design was carried quite up to the ceiling so as to form a 

 sort of architectural frontispiece, composed of two or more stages piled 

 up on each other, adorned with columns, pilasters, caryatides, termini, 

 nil/lies, &c., and presenting an overloaded mass of carving and sculpture. 

 But though such compositions were generally exceedingly capricious, 

 and equally fantastic and coarse in detail, some were real works of art 

 truly admirable for artistic beauty of design and masterly execution. 

 In the palace of Fontainebleau were many sumptuous structures for 

 no they may be called of the kind, and among those still remaining is 

 the one in the ball-room, originally decorated with two bronze carya- 

 tides, larger than life, but for which columns are now substituted. 

 Various magnificent examples, of the same period, occur in the Low 

 Countries ; two noted ones in the H6tel de Ville at Courtrai, and one 

 of matchless beauty for its exquisite carvings in chestnut-wood, in the 

 H6tel du Franc at Bruges. In our own country, chimney-pieces of 

 the time of Elizabeth and James I. are by no means uncommon; 

 many are remaining not only in mansions of that period which are still 

 kept up, but in houses which have been almost completely modernised 

 in all other repects. A great number and also a great variety of them 

 may be found in Nash's ' Old English Mansions,' and Richardson's 

 different publications illustrative of Elizabethan architecture. In 

 general they are exceedingly heavy and cumbrous in their mass, ' over- 

 informed ' with ornament of all sorts, in the style.of the ponderous 

 cabinets of the time, and showing in fact sometimes like immense 

 pieces of furniture of the kind, owing to their rather contrasting than 

 according with the enrichment bestowed on other parts of the room. 

 Some however are of comparatively sober design, and even those which 

 are most extravagant as compositions, and over-loaded with ill-assorted 

 details, are of interest as exhibiting numerous samples of ornament. 



As the more regular Italian style gained ground, the fashion of 

 chimney-pieces greatly changed ; the decorated superstructure reaching 

 from the chimney-piece itself to the ceiling was either discarded alto- 

 gether or greatly reduced so as to become no more than a carved 

 framing to a panel. The chimney-piece and fire-place were reduced to 

 nearly their modern proportions and dimensions, whereas the opening 

 or fire-place had previously been of such size that a person might stand 

 within it as it resembled that of a large open kitchen fire-place ; which, 

 putting aside other objections, caused a room to appear low by com- 

 parison. At present the hciyht of the opening is made nearly the 

 iame in all cases, namely, from three to three feet and a half, the width 

 alone being increased accordingly as a larger fire-place than usual is 

 required and the dressings around it extended so as to proportion the 

 chimney-piece in some degree to the size of the room as a piece of 

 architectural furniture in it : thus like other furniture its dimensions 

 are limited by purpose and convenience, for were such as they dictate 

 eiceeded, the chimney-piece itself would look gigantic, and the mantel- 

 piece would be out of reach. When therefore a single fire-place of the 

 usual size is insufficient, as for very spacious rooms or galleries, there 

 are two or even more according to circumstances, and they must ol 



course be placed with strict regard to architectural symmetry : thus, 

 if two, there is generally one at each end of the room, though both 

 are sometimes placed on one side of it, namely, that facing the win- 

 dows, equidistant from the centre, and if the room be an ante-room, 

 with the door into it between them, and folding-doors at each end into 

 the adjoining apartments. Again, if there are three chimney-pieces, 

 one will be at each end, and the third in the centre of the side opposite 

 the windows, though there are instances of even three being placed all 



on that side. More than that number are scarcely ever required, . 



even so many being rather for ornament and regularity of design than 

 actual use. Apartments of such size as to require them on that 

 account, are rarely used as ordinary sitting-rooms, and there is little 

 occasion for fires in them at all when they are thronged with company. 

 Still there is occasionally a greater number : the picture-gallery at 

 Buckingham Palace, for instance, has no fewer than five chimney- 

 pieces, namely, two on each side, and another at the north-end. Fire- 

 places are sometimes made on the window side of the room, which 

 although by no means to be recommended for general practice, or for 

 more than one or two rooms at the most in the same house, has its 

 advantages in particular cases. It is a convenient disposition for them 

 in libraries, because a person can sit and read by the fireside and a 

 window at the same time : it is also very agreeable to have a chimney- 

 piece so placed when the windows command a fine prospect ; thirdly, 

 it produces a difference of character between that and the other rooms. 

 In such case there must of course be a central pier for the fire-place, 

 and that pier must be of such width as to allow the chimney-piece to 

 be placed against it without seeming to be squeezed in between the 

 windows. It is objected that when the chimney-piece is so placed, 

 not only is the wiudow side of the room apt to look crowded, but the 

 opposite one to look blank ; but that depends entirely upon circum- 

 stances : in a library, the opposite wall would be sufficiently filled with 

 bookcases ; or in any other room a sufficient balance may be kept up 

 between the opposite sides by hanging some very large picture, or 

 mirror, immediately facing the chimney-piece, or by a cabinet or eome 

 other large piece of furniture ; or it may chance to be a very great 

 convenience to have that side of the room free from a chimney-piece, 

 as it affords the opportunity of obtaining spacious folding-doors in the 

 centre of it into another apartment, or else a recess, either of which 

 would sufficiently fill up that side of the room. Instead of being 

 placed between windows, chimney-pieces are sometimes put beneath 

 them, the mantel-piece forming the internal sill of the window, and 

 the flue being carried up in one of the adjacent piers. Again, where 

 fanciful effect is aimed at, a chimney-piece is set in an architectural 

 compartment entirely filled with looking-glass, in which case the jambs 

 and mantel-piece are made to project very considerably, so that, doubled 

 by reflection, the chimney-piece has the appearance of being a solid 

 and insulated mass of marble. 



Marble is now the usual material for chimney-pieces even in ordi- 

 nary houses, and such very general employment of it for the purpose 

 has caused economy to be consulted by excessive plainness of design 

 and scantiness of workmanship, sculpture being out of the question ; 

 the mouldings very few and plain, and the mantel-piece a mere shelf. 

 Chimney-pieces of this class are manufactured by wholesale, and are 

 kept like any other article of furniture ready-made, requiring only to 

 be fixed when purchased. Convenient and economical as it may be, 

 such a system is not calculated to advance taste, since a chimney-piece 

 ought to be designed expressly for the particular room where it is to 

 be put up. This is done of course in houses of a superior kind, and 

 yet in some recent instances there is so far from being that accordance 

 between the style of the chimney-pieces and the other architectural 

 decorations of the room, that, although the former call for rather a 

 greater than a lesser degree of embellishment, inasmuch as they are 

 more closely observed, they have frequently very much less, conse- 

 quently appear to be in a style of affected and harsh severity in com- 

 parison with all the rest. Worse than this, both style and keeping arc 

 sometimes so outrageously violated, that chimney-pieces of elaborate 

 and frittered design, a la Louis Quatorze, are fixed in rooms whose 

 other architectural dressings are marked by the opposite extreme of 

 soberness or even plainness. Neither is that attention given to colour 

 which ought to be : very dark or black marble is by no means the 

 most suitable for such purpose, because instead of relieving the fire- 

 place, the chimney-piece and fire-place together form a dull and sombre 

 mass. This disagreeable effect is very greatly increased when as is 

 actually the case in the morning room of the Conservative Club- 

 house black marble chimney-pieces are introduced among scagliola 

 columns and pilasters of pale or bright hues : all consistency of com- 

 position as to colour is destroyed, and instead of being ornamental 

 objects, the chimney-pieces look no better than two dismal blots in 

 the architecture. In fact black is quite as unsuitable a colour for 

 chimney-pieces as it would be for door-cases and window-dressings. 

 Among collections of designs for chimney-pieces, Piranesi's ' Maniere 

 di ornar gli Camini ' is unrivalled for magnificence of ideas. 



CHIMNEY-SWEEPER, a person whose trade it is to cleanse foul 

 chimneys from soot. The actual sweepers were formerly boys of very 

 tender age, who were taught to climb the flues, and who, from the 

 cruelties often practised upon them by their masters, became from the 

 commencement of this century objects of the particular care of the legis- 

 lature. The first and chief Act by which regulations concerning them 



