PAINTED CEILINGS 



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 noble- 

 men to do similar work ; among them was Cheron at Boughton 

 House, and Lanscroon at Drayton, both in Northamptonshire. 



