380 



MODELLED PLASTER ORNAMENT 



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 pro- 

 duced 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). Cottes- 









. 





> 



FlG. 312. Part of Ceiling in the Spenser Room, Canons Ashby, 

 Northamptonsh i re. 



brooke House, in the same county, has some delicate work of 

 much the same type (Fig. 313). 



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 



