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Contents
Introduction
I - Materials and their Uses
II - Plasterers in the Royal Works
III - Plasterers' Company
IV - From timber to plaster
V - The London Evidence
VI - Transmission and Diffusion
VII - The Impact of Inigo Jones
Publications
Gazetteer of Plasterers - Introduction
Gazetteer of Plasterers - A
Gazetteer of Plasterers - B
Gazetteer of Plasterers - C
Gazetteer of Plasterers - D
Gazetteer of Plasterers - E
Gazetteer of Plasterers - F
Gazetteer of Plasterers - G
Gazetteer of Plasterers - H
Gazetteer of Plasterers - I to J
Gazetteer of Plasterers - K
Gazetteer of Plasterers - L
Gazetteer of Plasterers - M
Gazetteer of Plasterers - N
Gazetteer of Plasterers - O
Gazetteer of Plasterers - P
Gazetteer of Plasterers - Q
Gazetteer of Plasterers - R
Gazetteer of Plasterers - S
Gazetteer of Plasterers - T
Gazetteer of Plasterers - U
Gazetteer of Plasterers - V
Gazetteer of Plasterers - W
Gazetteer of Plasterers - Y
Contents
DECORATIVE PLASTERWORK IN CITY, COURT AND COUNTRY,
1530-1640
Dr Claire Gapper
CHAPTER I - Materials and their Uses
Terminology
What did ‘ceiling’ mean?
‘Pargetting’ and ‘plastering’
The documentary evidence
Lime and gypsum plasters
I Lime plaster
Raw materials
Production of lime plaster
Aggregates
(i) Sand and clay
(ii) Hair
Decorative lime plaster without hair
(iii) Loam
II Gypsum plaster and plaster of Paris
Raw materials – alabaster - stone plaster
Stone Plaster
Production of gypsum plaster
Storage
Transport
Grey and white plasters
How lime and gypsum plasters were used
Equipment
Laths
A documentary case-study: St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury, 1539
‘Shooting’ floors
Making ceilings and interior walls – lime or gypsum or both?
Plasters and status
Mixing lime and gypsum
Analysis of plaster samples: the case of Acton Court
Limitations of chemical analysis
Roughcast
Plasterers’ routine tasks in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
Colouring plain plasterwork
Limewash
Whitewash and distemper
Pigments
Size
Whiting
Limewash or whitewash?
White oil paint
The whiteness of plaster of Paris
Other colours
Plasterers and painters
Tincturing heraldry
Plasterers and bricklayers
‘Pencilling’
The decoration of Conduit Court, Greenwich, 1582-83
‘Moulding’ and ‘purfling’
Black
The origins of decorative plasterwork in England
‘Stucco’ before Nonsuch
Nicholas Bellin’s work for Henry VIII
Uses of lime plaster in royal palaces after Henry VIII
‘Fretwork’
Decorative plasterwork – white or coloured?
CHAPTER II - Plasterers in the Royal Works
The workforce
Working practices
Impressment
Hours of work and overtime
Patterns of employment
Rates of pay
Task-work
The Royal Master Plasterers
Patrick Kellie (1555-67)
Thomas Kellie (1567-85)
John Symonds (1585-97) and John Allen
Richard Dungan (1597-1609)
James Leigh (1610-25)
Richard Talbott (1625-27)
CHAPTER III -The Plasterers’ Company of the City of London
Freedom of the City of London
‘Foreigners’ and ‘aliens’
City jurisdiction
Plasterers’ Company records; City of London records
The role and governance of the Plasterers’ Company: (i) the charter; (ii) the coat-of-arms; (iii) the Ordinances
Apprenticeship: Geographical origins of apprentices in the London Plasterers’ Company, 1597-1662.
Freedom by patrimony; Freedom after apprenticeship
Journeymanship; Yeomanry; Livery; The Wardens and Master; Court of Assistants
The Custom of London and Company members who were not plasterers
Freedom by redemption
Size of the Plasterers’ Company; Growth of the Plasterers’ Company
Social networks within the Plasterers’ Company
Control of the number of plasterers in London; Size of workshops
Trade secrets and trade disputes: ‘Foreign’ plasterers
Relations with other building trades
(i) Carpenters
(ii) Bricklayers and Tylers
(iii) Painter-Stainers
(iv) Joiners
Standards of workmanship
Work Quest Book
Four plasterers engaged on decorative work 1655-60
Patronage
The posts of City Plasterer and Bridgehouse Plasterer
Job opportunities for plasterers in the City
Social advancement
The example of Abraham Stanyon
Wealth accumulation by plasterers ... or the lack of it
CHAPTER IV - From timber to plaster: courtly ceilings in the sixteenth century
Introduction
Early developments in ‘ceiling’
Timber ceilings
Timber and plaster ceilings
Early decorative plaster ribs and bosses
Plane plaster surfaces
Hexagonal rib designs
Eight-pointed stars
Decorated timber ribs
Ceilings for Henry VIII
Bosses and pendants
Serlian designs
White or coloured ceilings in the Royal Works?
Courtly ceilings in the 1530s and 1540s
Nonsuch Palace
Absence of artistic training for English plasterers
Royal ceilings after Henry VIII
Aristocratic and courtier patronage of decorative plasterwork, 1547-84
Longleat
Copt Hall
Charterhouse
New Hall
Sheffield Manor Lodge
Ormond Castle
Burghley House
Theobalds
Chatsworth
King’s Manor
Helmsley Castle
Brooke House
Summary
Rib designs – pendants and bosses - strapwork – heraldry – flora
Friezes and moulds
Burgeoning skills of plasterers
Overmantels
Sculptural modelling and mason/sculptors
Elizabeth I as patron of plasterwork - enriched ribs
Enriched ribs – technique and sources
Royal patronage and the fashion for enriched ribs
Enriched ribs in courtier houses
Conclusion
CHAPTER V -The London Evidence
Introduction
Decorative plasterwork for institutions
Livery Company Halls
Charterhouse
Ecclesiastical examples
Characteristics of Elizabethan and Jacobean plasterwork in London
The sample
Flat ceilings and exposed beams
Ceiling ribs and status
Flat ribs
Rib designs
(i) Ceiling designs derived from native medieval traditions
(ii) Serlio or not?
(iii) New fashions – increasing elaboration
(iv) Inspiration for change - a new Royal Master Plasterer
Knole and Hatfield
(v) Strapwork
(vi) Influence of courtier houses in the early seventeenth century
Audley End
Bosses and pendants
Additional decoration
(i) Heraldry
(ii) Floral motifs
(iii) ‘Grotesques’
(iv) Medallion heads
Hand-modelled plasterwork
The small body of hand-modelled work in London
(i) Records of demolished work
(ii) Surviving examples of figurative work
(iii) Iconography
Biblical
Personifications
Mythological
Emblems
Grotesques
(iv) Engraved sources and their ownership
Plasterers of modelled work – James Avis, William Blackshaw
Conclusion
Chapter VI - Transmission and Diffusion
Plasterers documented working outside London
The repetitive use of moulds and ‘local schools’ of plasterwork
Limits of the methodology - the ‘Middlesex Jacobean Plasterer’?
Production of moulds in London
Small cast ornament on strapwork and flat ribs
Design sources for moulds
Attributions to a single plasterer
'Identical' ceilings
Ceilings connected by rib design and several motifs
London-style plasterwork outside London
Oxfordshire and Kent
Broughton Castle, Lynsted Park, Mapledurham House
South Midlands
Mapledurham House and Hardwick Court, Oxon
Dorton Court & Canons Ashby, Northants, and Manor Farm, Cotton End, Bedfordshire
Surviving plasterwork by documented London plasterers
Richard Dungan, Knole and Lullingstone Castle, Kent
James Leigh and a change of style in London
The plasterwork of Edward Stanyon and the dominant style of the 1620s
Conclusion
CHAPTER VII - The Impact of Inigo Jones
Introduction
Inigo Jones’s experience of plaster in Italy
Jones’s approach to interior decoration and designs for ceilings
Jonesian ceilings in timber or paint, rather than plaster
London plasterers in the 1620s
William Willingham
Joseph Kinsman at Goldsmiths’ Hall, Ham House and the Royal Works
The spread of Jones’s influence: ‘transitional’ ceilings in London
Conclusion
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