The Garter Room at Stowe House’, the Georgian Group Journal, Vol
Michael Bevington, ‘The Garter Room at Stowe House’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xV, 2006, pp. 140–158
text © the authors 2006 THE GARTER ROOM AT STOWE HOUSE
MICHAEL BEVINGTON
he Garter Room at Stowe House was described as the Ball Room and subsequently as the large Tby Michael Gibbon as ‘following, or rather Library, which led to a three-room apartment, which blazing, the Neo-classical trail’. This article will show Lady Newdigate noted as all ‘newly built’ in July that its shell was built by Lord Cobham, perhaps to . On the western side the answering gallery was the design of Capability Brown, before , and that known as the State Gallery and subsequently as the the plan itself was unique. It was completed for Earl State Dining Room. Next west was the State Temple, mainly in , to a design by John Hobcraft, Dressing Room, and the State Bedchamber was at perhaps advised by Giovanni-Battista Borra. Its the western end of the main enfilade. In Lady detailed decoration, however, was taken from newly Newdigate was told by ‘the person who shewd the documented Hellenistic buildings in the near east, house’ that this room was to be ‘a prodigious large especially the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra. Borra’s bedchamber … in which the bed is to be raised drawings of this building were published in the first upon steps’, intended ‘for any of the Royal Family, if of Robert Wood’s two famous books, The Ruins of ever they should do my Lord the honour of a visit.’ Palmyra otherwise Tedmor in the Desart , in . ‘This apartment is to be fitted up with the greatest This article will demonstrate that the Garter Room Magnificence, it is at present only brick walls yet said was the first room in the modern world to be based to have cost ten thousand pounds’. The room was on the Temple of the Sun, and it will suggest why not mentioned by the Duchess of Beaufort, who the iconography of Palmyra would have been so visited on September , so it was presumably attractive to Earl Temple. still unfinished then. Since the brickwork seen by Lady Newdigate presumably included the fireplace, the only possible location for the bed would have been against the THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE west wall, where it eventually went. Here the Stowe STATE APARTMENT AT STOWE State Bed was intended to stand on a dais behind The State Bedchamber or Garter Room (Figs. and ) railings. This may have been Lord Cobham’s own was the culmination of Lord Cobham’s design of the idea, as by this time he had designed at least one ’s. During this decade he embarked on the garden and one park building. Or it could have grand scheme of extending his father’s seventeenth- been one of his architects, who included Gibbs in century house by galleries and two end pavilions. – , possibly Flitcroft c. , and Brown, The result was an impressive enfilade of eleven nominally head gardener, but effectively clerk of rooms centred on the Great Parlour (replaced in the works from to . Lord Cobham had ’s with the Marble Hall). Lord Cobham had requested Brown’s plans for the ‘Long Room’ in started on the eastern side with a gallery once known April . This is unlikely to have been for the
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Fig. . The Garter Room photographed by J. Mudd in the s. The State Bed in the recess at the west end until had been replaced by a large mirror. Stowe School .
Fig. . The Garter Room as school Dining Room, before . The mirror had been removed and an elliptical window set in the west wall by Clough Williams-Ellis. The former loggia is on the left. Buckinghamshire County Council .
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Fig. . Fairchild, plan of the State Apartment at Stowe House, . a) is the State Bed Chamber (the Garter Room), b) is the State Dressing Room, c) is the State Dining Room (the Gallery), and f) is the loggia.
gallery on the east side (the Ball room, now the Lord Cobham clearly intended that the State Bed Library), since its cornice and cove were plastered by itself should be the climax of his enfilade. In April and it was complete by July . It is also Stowe had been designed with an enfilade aligned unlikely to have meant the State Gallery (now the State with windows in the end rooms and located close to Dining Room), which answers the Library on the west the exterior wall. The positioning of doorways close side, as joiners and plasterers were at work there in to the exterior walls limited the range of possibilities , and Francesco Sleter was paid for the four for the dynamic shapes of rooms. But this was the paintings in the cove in April . Although the usual position. Several large English houses Library and State Dining Room are and feet long included the bedchamber near the end of the respectively, it may be significant that Seeley called progression through the State Rooms. At Chatsworth them both ‘galleries’, not ‘rooms’, in the the state apartment on the first floor of the south side Description .... However, the State Bedchamber, runs east to west towards the State Bedchamber. In originally feet inches by feet inches, could the south front of Hampton Court, progressing from also have been described as a long room. Brown, who west to east, the State Bedchamber lay beyond the had designed the Grecian Temple and other buildings Throne Room, although the Queen’s closet in the garden, may therefore have drawn up the plans, occupied the actual corner. Only in a few instances, but the idea could have been Lord Cobham’s. It may as in the Saloon at Blenheim, was the enfilade used be significant that Lord Cobham’s portrait was to more creatively, providing vistas along the centres of feature in this part of the house. the rooms. At Blenheim a pair of three-roomed
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV THE GARTER ROOM AT STOWE HOUSE apartments in the state rooms along the south front the bed alcove. The wide south arm was adjoined by was mirrored on the east front by another pair of a loggia ( f on the plan in fig. ), to balance that on the private apartmens. Likewise Stowe had its private south side of the east pavilion. But the room was apartment at the east end of the enfilade, mirroring rebuilt for structural reasons by Fielding Dodds in the location of the state apartment at the west end. (Figs. & ). The four closets were removed, as Nevertheless, at Blenheim, more typical of a were the two additional Palmyrene ceilings near the seventeenth-century layout, the final room in the windows. The ceiling is aligned on the centre of sequence was the dressing room or closet, and the the new room and not on the enfilade, like the bed in the previous room could therefore not be in original ceiling. the alignment but had to stand to one side, at right angles. The ground floor on the south side of Beningbrough has bedroom suites at either end but, again, the dressing rooms are in the corners, with the THE SOURCE OF THE DESIGN bedchambers one room in towards the centre of the It was clearly Lord Cobham’s intention from the start house. Stowe’s State Bedchamber is therefore probably that his state apartment should be decorated with unique on two counts. The bedchamber is at the very classical themes. The four medallion paintings in the end of the enfilade, and the bed itself is aligned with cove of the State Gallery, for which Sleter was paid six the enfilade, not set back from it at right angles. guineas in April , represent Hebe , Diana , and Although Earl Temple inherited Stowe in , it Cupid and two Graces . Lord Cobham commissioned was not until that work started on the interior of Urban Leyniers at Brussels to manufacture a series of the State Bedchamber. In February John five large tapestries, all on the theme of the triumphs of Hobcraft charged for ‘Drawing a Plan for State classical deities (Bacchus, Neptune, Mars, Diana, Bedchamber’. In April Thomas Collingridge was Ceres), while the overmantels illustrated the paid for joining the floors. In June Charles Scriven importance of truth and poetic inspiration. Such a was paid for glass. In July Thomas Collingridge was classical triumph was part of the carefully orchestrated paid for work about the partitions. In October iconography supporting Cobham’s other martial and George Pain was paid ( £ ) for the ceiling. Nearly political themes elsewhere in the house. three years later, in September , Thomas Page was Earl Temple, who succeeded his uncle at Stowe paid for hanging the doors, and the room must have in , was more single-mindedly devoted to the been complete by , when William Bacon set up classical world. He spent much time and money the State Bed. was also the date of Seeley’s first purifying Stowe’s classical buildings and developing Description ... to give details of the interior of the more complex classical iconographies. Previously house. Earl Temple, however, was awarded the Garter classical architecture had been copied from sources only in February , after his brother-in-law William like Palladio’s engravings of Roman temples. These Pitt had asked for it on his behalf, so the centre of the were turned into trend-setting copies like William ceiling with its Garter insignia and the hangings on the Kent’s Temple of Ancient Virtue at Stowe in the mid bed were not added until then. ’s. A decade earlier Sir John Vanbrugh had As completed the Garter Room had an elongated experimented with reconstructing a circular Temple, cruciform plan (Fig. ), with four closets in the the Rotondo, from a surviving account by the Roman corners, closed off perhaps by the partitions for writer Vitruvius. No one, however, had tried to which Collingridge was paid in July . The east copy accurate details from a newly discovered and west arms were narrower, and the west one was ancient ruin until the ’s, when Borra’s drawings
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Fig. . R. Fielding Dodd and C. Hawkes, plan of the proposed Garter Room ceiling after the removal of the corner closets, . Stowe School . became available in Wood’s two publications. At . Borra’s drawings were published as The Brown’s departure in the autumn of , Earl Ruins of Palmyra in and The Ruins of Balbec in Temple grasped a unique opportunity to take the lead . These books were the first of several in importing classical expertise in his development of archaeological volumes to inform the classical Stowe. revival. James ‘Athenian’ Stuart ( – ) and From late the Torinese architect Giovanni Nicholas Revett ( – ) had planned their Battista Borra ( – ) had probably the greatest Greek expedition from to , but they had yet direct knowledge of classical architecture of any to complete their travels, and their first volume was architect in England. When Robert Wood ( c. – ) not published until . and John Bouverie ( c. – , who died on the Earl Temple had been a member of the Society expedition) set out from Naples in to record of Dilettanti, the leading society for classical classical architecture in the near east, they took archaeologists, from , and probably from its start James Dawkins ( – ) and Borra with them as two years earlier. Both Wood’s and Stuart’s draughtsmen. To avoid conflicting with James expeditions were supported by this society and Stuart’s expedition to Athens, they went further and Wood was elected a member in . Earl Temple recorded the remains of two Roman cities in the therefore engaged Borra soon after the latter arrived Greek east, Palmyra and Baalbeck. Palmyra had been in London in the autumn of ready to prepare his located by some English merchants only in and drawings for Wood’s publications. Eight letters in Baalbeck was first visited by Henry Maundrell in French survive from Borra in London to Earl
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Fig. . The Garter Room, looking east, in , after the removal of the corner closets. The circular motif on the central axis of the ceiling is also derived from the ceiling of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra. Stowe School .
Temple, referring to his work at Stowe in and between and , while Borra returned to Turin . Borra reconstructed various existing garden in and there is no evidence for subsequent visits buildings at Stowe on purer classical lines, including by him to England. Vanbrugh’s Rotondo (between and ), the The first evidence of Borra’s proposals for Stowe Grecian Temple (in and ), and the Gibbs’ House itself is the engraving of the South Front Building (in ), rededicating it to Diana. He has ‘according to the Plan Propos’d by Signor Borra’, also been credited with plans for altering the Boycott usually dated . Earl Temple rejected Borra’s Pavilions and the addition of ceilings in the Palladian design, but in he himself designed with Borra Bridge and the Lake Pavilions. The execution of his the double flight of steps for the south front which proposals may have been delayed, since it occurred survived until . It is not yet certain whether the
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Fig. . J.-B. Borra, plan of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra …, London, , plate xvi.
two Palmyrene features of the Garter Room were truncated corners, placed near each other along their contemporary with Borra’s south front proposal. long sides, with small squares at ° in between These were the ceiling design, taken from the (Appendix: type A ) (Fig. ). This latter pattern Temple of the Sun, and the location of the four should be distinguished from a similar pattern with closets, modelled on the floor-plan of the same regular octagons, illustrated by Serlio and copied by temple (Fig. ). On August Temple praised William Kent, Robert Adam and others (Appendix: the proposed alterations of his brother-in-law, type A ) (Fig. ). William Pitt, to ‘Signor Borra’s plan for the house’, Of the two based on circles, one had adjoining which Borra had himself adopted. Pitt’s proposals circles in a rectangular grid pattern, with small four- may have included the State Dressing Room and pointed stars with smooth convex sides (Appendix: State Bedchamber, although by August work on type B ) (Fig. ). The other had interlocking circles these was well under way. in a rectangular grid pattern, forming very small four- pointed stars with smooth convex sides in between four adjacent circles (Appendix: type B ) (Fig. ). There were also a few patterns based on hexagons, PALMYRENE CEILINGS but these were less distinctive from well tried ideas of Four patterns of Palmyrene ceilings were copied in earlier centuries. England. Two were based on octagons and two on Of the two octagonal patterns, one came from circles. Stowe’s Garter Room must be unique among inside the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra and one neo-classical rooms in England in that it had examples from its courtyard. The first use in England of both of three of the four types, while the fourth was used on was probably at Stowe: the former in the Garter the Temple of Concord and Victory in the garden. Room (Fig. ) and the latter in the pronaos of the Of the two based on octagons, one had regular Temple of Concord & Victory (Fig. ). The former, octagons joined at the angles, with small squares and discussed in by Richard Hewlings in an article triangles in between (Appendix: type A ) ( Fig. ). on one of its manifestations, became the best known The other had non-regular octagons, or squares with of all Palmyrene features.
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The two circular patterns were less frequently interior of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra, with its used. Their origin as sepulchral decoration may have two adytons inside the cella (Fig. ). In recreating put off clients, and the slightly less attractive aesthetic this Earl Temple was creating his own temple as the arrangement of circles within the rectangular frame climax of the enfilade, his axis of honour. In place of of a ceiling may also have been a factor. Their use is the altar, on the dais at the end recess, stood the state slightly later in date, although Borra made good use bed. The twelve attached Corinthian pilasters also of them in in Turin in the late s. Both circular recalled the Palmyrene temple. Wood noted that ‘the patterns were used for the Garter Room’s lower-level whole architecture of Palmyra is Corinthian, richly ceiling near the windows (Fig. ). It is just possible ornamented’. that these were part of Borra’s loggia on the south Earl Temple was probably driven not only by his side of the Garter Room, as originally designed, and desire to produce the first archaeologically authentic that they were then incorporated or copied in the reconstruction of a newly recorded Hellenistic enlarged room when the south front was rebuilt in temple. He was also, doubtless, restating his strong the early ’s. Alternatively, they could have been political views. As so often at Stowe, development in introduced then. architecture and gardening reflected political themes The one awkward feature of the original angled and libertarian ideals. The iconographical octagonal ceiling from Palmyra was its central significance of the Temple of the Sun is made clear circular recess. Although bordered with an impressive in Robert Wood’s preface to The Ruins of Palmyra . Greek key pattern, the junction between the circle He commented on its Syrian name, Tedmor, and the straight lines of the surrounding octagons meaning ‘palm’, according to St Jerome, and its was not very happy. A similar circular centrepiece Greek name ‘Palmyra’ with the same meaning. These featuring a bust was found on the other octagonal obviously suited the finale of Earl Temple’s triumphal ceiling at Palmyra. Borra therefore eliminated these progression along the enfilade, since a palm stood for central circles at Stowe, although he kept a small one victory and triumph. over the bed recess at the far end of the State Wood then wrote a eulogy of Palmyra’s most Bedroom and at the eastern end (Fig. ). Instead he famous ruler, Queen Zenobia, who reigned from introduced a flat central panel with mainly straight to AD . He followed Trebellius Pollio in edges, doubtless designed for recording the eventual highlighting her regal beauty (she ‘puts one more in grant of the Garter (Figs. and ). A similar design mind of Minerva than Venus’), her linguistic abilities, can be found inside the Temple of Concord and her prudent government, her chaste views even Victory, although it has not yet received any within marriage, her capacity for drink (doubtless a decoration. winner with Earl Temple, who honoured Bacchus in several places at Stowe), and above all her great military conquests – ‘an example of one of the most rapid and extraordinary changes of fortune we meet THE TEMPLE OF THE SUN AND with in history’. She thus became an exemplar of LIBERTARIAN IDEALS military virtues (amid Persian luxury), the result of a The State Bedroom recreated Palmyra not only in the ‘republican’ government, so dear in its libertarian ceiling design from the Temple of the Sun but also in form to Earl Temple. At the same time Zenobia its general plan. In each corner were rectangular encouraged excellence in literature. Wood applauded closets, breaking forward into the central space Zenobia’s minister Dionysius Cassius Longinus, (Fig. ). This recalls the oriental design of the Alexander Pope’s ‘ardent Judge … always just’,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV THE GARTER ROOM AT STOWE HOUSE for his Treatise on the Sublime , which must have layout of an ancient building, in this case of influenced Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry Stonehenge for John Wood’s Circus, took place from into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and , although here the motive was a complex Beautiful published in . mixture of religious and political aetiology. Zenobia, or ‘Augusta’ as she called herself on her The earliest influence of Stowe’s State Bedroom coins, was thus considered the ‘noblest woman in all can probably be seen at Woburn, where the State the Orient’. She had come to symbolise wealth, trade Apartments were being finished in about – . and political independence, challenging totalitarian Here the enfilade of state apartments in the west Rome, rather like Boudica and Caractacus in Britain, wing is united by the addition of triumphal palm- both in favour at this time, the latter with a relief later branches over each door. The progression from commissioned for Stowe’s North Hall. This would south to north culminates in the state bedroom, have appealed strongly both to Earl Temple and to which also has a ceiling of regular octagons linked at William Pitt. The Eagle Relief at Palmyra (plate the angles and taken from the Temple of the Sun. XVIII of Wood’s book) was actually incorporated The allusion to Palmyra is not so strong, however, as into the seal of the United States, an indication of its there are no corner closets as at Stowe (nor is the republican associations. bed in alignment with the enfilade). On the other Given the republican overtones of the Garter hand the sun-allusion of the Palmyrene ceiling in the Room’s original shape and ceiling, it is significant church which Sir Francis Dashwood built at West that the four pillars of Borra’s State Bed were carved Wycombe in – is supported by a mausoleum at as bound fasces , symbolising Roman totalitarian its eastern end, copied from the hexagonal court at control. This must have been a deliberate choice. Baalbeck, the ancient Heliopolis or ‘City of the Sun’, The bed was designed for visiting royalty but and a sun-like golden globe on the tower. George II disliked Temple intensely and long A second, nationalistic, iconography could refused his request for the Garter. Its eventual grant, perhaps be deduced from the depiction of the Garter after the King’s death in , and its immediate insignia on the ceiling. It concerns the significance of display on the ceiling of the State Bedroom would April. This date, St George’s Day, is used for the have focused Earl Temple’s choice of iconography institution of new knights of the Garter. It was also even more sharply, with the central insignia of the the date for the publication of the great political Garter blazing like the Sun, as befitted the original libertarian John Wilkes’s anti-government journal, Temple, with its rays spreading into eight points. The North Briton , No. , and the traditional Regal power was to be eclipsed by Earl Temple’s birthday of William Shakespeare, whose Chandos libertarian archaeology. portrait became the most celebrated picture at Stowe The republican overtones of the Palmyrene and was hung in one of the four Closets in this ceiling used in the Garter Room may also have room. influenced its later use on the Palladian Bridge at Although The North Briton , No. cannot have Stowe, in about . This building already had been a consideration, as it only appeared in , strong libertarian themes, including a painting of Wilkes was to be alluded to in due course. When the William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania. south front was rebuilt in – , Earl Temple This could also reflect a later phase of William Pitt’s added a statue of Liberty on the exterior skyline. iconographical influence at Stowe, since ‘concord’ George Clarke has shown that the statue of Liberty with his brother-in-law, Earl Temple, had been was to be identified with Wilkes from his squint. restored by then. At Bath a similar re-use of the Until the political overtones of the Garter Room,
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XV THE GARTER ROOM AT STOWE HOUSE immediately below the statue of Liberty, are APPENDIX understood, it is difficult to understand why Earl Temple chose this particular location for such an PALMYRENE CEILINGS IN 47 obscure but specifically political feature. EIGHTEENTH - CENTURY BRITAIN The publication of The North Briton , No. , in A: regular octagons joined at the angles, and led to Wilkes’s imprisonment by the small squares and triangles. government of George Grenville, Earl Temple’s [Wood, Ruins of Palmyra ( ), pl. XIX (top), the brother. Robert Wood, the author of Palmyra , had Temple of the Sun, south recess (Fig. )] already turned to politics as Under-Secretary of State Stowe, State Bedroom, main ceiling, by Borra, to William Pitt in , and since he had been – (Fig. ). MP for Brackley, a few miles from Stowe. He now Woburn Abbey, State Bedroom, ceiling, by supported the government and had a heated Flitcroft, c. – . argument with Earl Temple in Wilkes’s own house No. Pottergate, Lincoln, first floor rear room, while Wilkes was being arrested, when Temple perhaps by Chambers, – . objected to the violence used in searching for Stowe, Palladian Bridge, ceiling, c. . Wilkes’s private papers. Wood’s victory was only West Wycombe, Church, ceiling, by Giovanni temporary; later that year he was prosecuted for Borgnis (younger), . abusing the General Warrant under which Wilkes had Warwick Castle, Green Room, ceiling, possibly by Lightoler, – . been arrested, and had to pay damages of £, . West Wycombe, Hall, ceiling, by Giovanni Wilkes and Temple rightly claimed to have Borgnis (younger), c. . safeguarded the nation’s liberties. In June that year Osterley Park, Drawing Room, ceiling, by Robert Earl Temple announced from Stowe that ‘Wilkes and Adam, c. . Liberty and all her friends will continue to be most Drayton, Drawing Room, ceiling, by William welcome here’. Robert Wood would never have Rhodes, . known of Temple’s tribute to Wilkes, since Liberty’s Milton Abbey, Library, ceiling, by Chambers, in or squint cannot be seen from the ground outside the after , though perhaps designed after . Garter Room. Wood could, however, have Stratfield Saye, Dining Room, ceiling, room remained pleased with the first comprehensive use of added c. . his ground-breaking book on Palmyra inside the A: non-regular octagons, or squares with Garter Room. truncated corners, set next to each other with long sides parallel, and small squares set at an angle. [Wood, Ruins of Palmyra ( ), pl. VIII, courtyard to the Temple of the Sun (Fig. )] ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Stowe, the Temple of Concord & Victory, ceiling I am indebted to published articles by Mr George of the pronaos , by Borra, – (Fig. ). Clarke, The Knight of Glin, the late Michael Gibbon, Norfolk House, Flowered Red Velvet Room, Mr Richard Hewlings, Professor Michael McCarthy, ceiling, by Borra, c. – . and for discussions with Mr John Davis and Corsham Court, the Picture Gallery, flat of ceiling, by Lancelot Brown, –. Professor Susan Tebby. Professor Tebby has made a Spencer House, The Great or Ball Room, cove of detailed study of both the Palmyrene ceilings and ceiling, by James Stuart, decorated . Borra’s interpretation of them. Osterley Park, Library, carpet, by Robert Adam, – .
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Fig. . Type A , from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra …, London, , plate xix.
Fig. . Detail of fig. . Stowe School .
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Fig. . Type A , from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra …, London, , plate viii.
Fig. . Ceiling of the pronaos of the Temple of Cocord and Victory, Stowe.
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Fig. . Type B , from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra …, London, , plate xxxvii.
Fig. . Ceiling of the loggia of the Garter Room, showing type B ornament, and (just visible at the edge) type B ornament on the soffit of the colonnade. H.A. Mason .
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Fig. . Type B , from Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra …, London, , plate xlii.
Fig. . Type A , from Sebastiano Serlio, Book IV, chapter , fol. .
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B: separate circles set in a rectangular grid, and Octagon-patterned ceilings earlier than Wood’s small four-pointed stars with smooth convex sides. Palmyra of : [Wood, Ruins of Palmyra ( ), pl. XXXVII, (not A: regular octagons set side-on, and small squares recorded as drawn by Borra), sepulchre repository set at an angle. (Fig. )] [Sebastiano Serlio, The Five Books of Architecture , Norfolk House, Great Drawing Room, ceiling, by London, , Book IV, ch. , fol. (Fig. ); Borra, c. – . Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of Architecture , Harewood House, Study, design for ceiling, by , IV, pl.III (The Temple of Peace)] Robert Adam, . Kensington Palace, Cupola Room, painted cove Stowe, Garter Room, window bay ceiling, of ceiling, by William Kent, . possibly by Robert Adam or Thomas Pitt, c. , Chiswick House, Saloon, ceiling, by William (or possibly by Borra, c. ), removed Kent, – . (Fig. ). B: interlocking circles Hexagons: [Wood, Ruins of Palmyra ( ), pl. XLII (bottom), These sometimes featured on earlier classical sepulchre (Fig. )] ceilings, usually in combination with other shapes. West Wycombe, Dining Room (originally the Stowe, the Temple of Concord & Victory, cella ‘First Hall’), ceiling, by Giovanni Borgnis (interior) ceiling, presumably by Borra in (younger), c. . –. Stowe, Garter Room, window bay ceiling border, Holdernesse House, London, Centre Drawing possibly by Robert Adam or Thomas Pitt, c. , Room, by Stuart, c. – ; (or possibly by Borra, c. ), removed St James’ Square, London, first-floor Front (Fig. ). Drawing Room, by Stuart, – . Stowe, the Lake Pavilions, c. . Mount Stewart, Co. Down, Tower of the Winds, first floor room ceiling, by Stuart, c. .
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NOTES The accounts suggest that the description ‘Long Michael Gibbon, ‘The History of Stowe, XVIII, Room’ was used for both the Ball Room and the Earl Temple and Giambattista Borra’, The Stoic , Garter Room. The following payments, for instance , XXV. , No. , March , . A shorter version made in , must refer to the Ball Room: of this article appeared in The Stoic , No. , , Feb.: ‘To W’m Pain on Acc’t for the Cornice – . For a fuller list of sources, see Michael of The Long Room – £..’ Bevington, ‘Stowe: The Bibliography: March: ‘To W’m Pain for Plastering The The Landscape Garden, Park, House, Estate and Cornice of the Great Room – £. .’ School’, supplement to New Arcadian Journal , April : ‘To W’m Pain on Acct for The Cove of Nos. / , / . The Long R:m – £ . .’ For ease of identification in this article, I have April : ‘To Shoular on Acct for Masons work mostly used ‘Garter Room’ instead of ‘State on pr The great [room] – £..’ Bedroom’. It was known as ‘the State Bedroom’ June : ‘To Thomas Walker for Carveing the – , ‘the Duchess’s Drawing Room’ Scrowels in The Three Chimny Pieces below – , and ‘the Garter Room’ from to now. The Long Room – £. .’ The name ‘Garter Room’ applies to all its existence [San Marino (Ca.), Henry E. Huntington Library except its first five years and thus is the most easily (hereafter cited as HL), and , ex inf. Cathy understood. Fisher].While money disbursed by James Squibb G.B.Clarke (ed.), ‘Descriptions of Lord Cobham’s on September , ‘For of Leaf Gold & Gardens at Stowe ( – )’, Buckinghamshire Pencils for the Festoons in the long Room at Record Society , XXVI, , – . Stowe– .. ’ [ Idem ] may refer to either. ‘The Idem. Great Room’, however, refers to the State Dining John Harris, ‘The Duchess of Beaufort’s Room, contemporary with the matching gallery of Observations on Places ’, The Georgian Group the Ball Room. As an aid to identification the two Journal , X, , . galleries have coves, while the Garter Room does A bed behind railings, imitating Versailles, where not; and the Ball Room has three rooms with Louis XIV would allow only princes beyond this fireplaces below. balustrade at a levée , survives in Britain apparently In the ’s and ’s the influence of Palladio’s only at Powis Castle, where it dates from the ’s villa designs produced enfilades aligned with the [The National Trust, Powis Castle , London, , fireplaces in the rooms at each end. This was the ]. A bed alcove was designed by John Webb in case at Houghton in the east and west side enfilades – for Greenwich Palace [John Bold, John and at one end of the south side of Holkham, but it Webb , London, , – ]. For their use by is less effective in England than the brighter regions Campbell and Morris, see Steven Brindle, of Italy. ‘Pembroke House, Whitehall’, The Georgian Group Mark Girouard, Life in the English Country House: Journal , VIII, , , note . At Pembroke A Social and Architectural History , London, , House in the bed alcoves had pilasters or half- , fig. . columns at the corners, similar to the arrangement In Borra’s State Bed was removed to the at Stowe designed two years before. At Stowe bed eastern end of the enfilade. A large mirror in the alcoves were still used in the nineteenth century, for recess replaced it [H. R. Forster (ed.), The Stowe instance in the Buckingham Suite. Sale Catalogue, Priced and Annotated , London, Michael Gibbon, ‘Stowe, Bucks., The house and , , lot ]. This was not unique, but it garden buildings and their designers’, Architectural cleverly exploited the visual effect of the long History , XX, . alignment. At Dyrham House van Hoogstraeten’s Michael Gibbon, in The Stoic , March , ; painting of A View down a corridor maintains the Desmond Fitz-Gerald, ‘A History of the Interior of illusion of a continuous enfilade. The size of the Stowe’, Apollo , XCVII, , June , . later Garter Room mirror, however, nearly feet Dorothy Stroud, Capability Brown , London, , high by wide, must have made this a compelling , . vista to complete the visitor’s tour and to brighten a relatively dark room.
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Fitz-Gerald, op. cit. , . publication of both The Ruins of Palmyra otherwise HL, STG a/c, Box ., ‘ days Joyning up the Tedmor in the Desart in and The Ruins of flowring Bords for the State room £. . ’ Balbec otherwise Heliopolis in Coelosyria in Ibid. , STG a/c Repairs Box ., ‘ Squares of [Desmond Fitz-Gerald, The Norfolk House Music best Crowne Glass Content ft._ £. . , Box Room , London, , , note ]. The Gentleman’s for packing, . , [total] £. . ’, endorsed ’Great Magazine , February , , records that the Bedchamber’. expedition was ‘undertaken by two gentlemen of Ibid. , STG a/c Repairs Box ., ‘about ye fortune, without any view of pecuniary advantage’, partitions in the State Room £. . ’. referring to Bouverie and Dawkins. Ibid. , STG a/c Box ., ‘for the ceeling of the State The sudden spurt in number and quality of Bedchamber £ . . ’. archaeological publications is evident from the fact Ibid. , STG a/c Box , ., ‘Hang. the Doors in the that there were four major publications in the ten State Bed Chamber’. years from to , whereas for the eleven years Fitz-Gerald, loc.cit.. The State Bed is now in the after Robert Wood’s two publications, from to Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight. , there were ten major publications. Before By contrast the Garter in the central oval Wood’s books the following appeared: Richard compartment of the ceiling in the hall at Wakefield Pococke, A Description of the East and some other Lodge, close to Stowe in Northamptonshire, must countries , London, – ; G. B. Piranesi, have been part of Samuel Calderwood’s Antichità romane de’ tempi della Republica, e de’ plasterwork, done between and [Richard primi imperatori , Rome, ; G.M. Pancrazi, Hewlings, ‘Wakefield Lodge and other houses of the Antichità Siciliane spiegate colle notizie generali di second Duke of Grafton’, Georgian Group Journal , questo regno , Naples, ; and Richard Dalton, III, , ], even though the Duke of Grafton had Antiquities and Views in Greece and Egypt , , received the Garter in October , over years following visits to Sicily, Greece and Asia Minor earlier. with Lord Charlemont in . After Wood’s books Michael Bevington, ‘The development of the the number and quality increased: J.-D. Le Roy, Les classical revival at Stowe’, Architectura , XXI, no. , Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce , Paris, (hereafter cited as Bevington, ‘Development’), ; Robert Sayer, Ruins of Athens and Other – . Valuable Antiquities in Greece , ; James Stuart Brown wrote possibly his last letter from Stowe in and Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens , I, October [Stroud, op. cit. , , note ]. ; Robert Adam, Ruins of the Palace of the J. Mordaunt Crook, The Greek Revival: Neo- Emperor Diocletian, at Spalatro, in Dalmatia , Classical Attitudes in British Architecture ; G.-M. Dumont, Les Ruins de Paestum , – , London, , . Dr William Halifax, and , Filippo Morghen, [ Paestum ], ; John chaplain to the English Factory at Aleppo, recorded Berkenhout, The Ruins of Paestum or Posidonia , that Dr Huntington and other English visitors from ; Thomas Major, The Ruins of Paestum , ; Aleppo discovered Palmyra in , but Arabian Stephen Riou, Grecian Orders , ; Richard robbers stole their clothes, so ‘they staied not to Chandler, Nicholas Revett and W. Pars, etc ., Ionian take a more exact survey of ye ancient ruines’ Antiquities , I, . [William Halifax, ‘A relation of a voyage to Tadmor In his Preface to Palmyra , Wood states that he left in ’ from the original manuscript in the Athens to ‘Mr Stewart and Mr Revet’, implying that possession of Mr Albert Hartshorne, reprinted with he saw his two volumes as part of the record of notes by Major C.R. Conder, The Journal of the eastern classical architecture. Borra was probably Palestine Exploration Fund , London, June ]. planning to produce a further volume of Henry Maundrell, like Bouverie from a Wiltshire archaeological sources for classical architecture. family, was also chaplain to the Factory at Aleppo. He had a collection of finished drawings from Asia His account, A Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem at Minor. There are drawings by him in the Yale Easter AD , was published in , two years Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut after his death. [Francis Russell, ‘Breaking fresh Ground’, Country Dawkins is said to have spent £ , on the Life, CLX, November , , – ].
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Laurence Whistler, ‘Signor Borra at Stowe’, called her ‘the vertuous Palmyrene’, ‘chaste’ and Country Life , CXXII, August , , – . ninth in time but equal in ‘Fame and vertue’ with Ibid. , ; Jean-Baptiste Chatelain and George the eighth, Boudica. An odd link is that Alice Bickham, The Beauties of Stowe, [c. –]. Its three Spencer, who played the part of Zenobia, married massive pavilions with numerous columns in antis Sir Thomas Egerton and through the marriage of seem inspired by the Great Temple at Baalbeck. It her second daughter to the later Earl of Bridgewater might then be assumed that this fits with the provided another connection with Robert Wood suggestion that Stowe’s Grecian Temple of was who acted as tutor to the rd Duke of Bridgewater based by ‘Capability’ Brown on Pococke’s in and was M.P. for Brackley with its inaccurate Baalbeck drawing, and that this was a Bridgewater influence. Zenobia’s virtues were major reason why Earl Temple called in Borra so comparable with those painted in by Boucher soon after his arrival in England [Bevington, on the ceiling of The Queen’s Chamber at ‘Development’, cit. , – . This also includes the Versailles: charity, generosity, fidelity and prudence. first suggestion of Brown as the architect of the Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism , London Temple of Concord and Victory, an attribution ?, , – . The name ‘ Cassius’ in Dionysius confirmed by anon., ‘Anecdotes of Mr Brown, the Cassius Longinus, often confused with the Gardener’, The Morning Post and Daily Advertiser republican author Cassius Longinus, would have ( July ), discovered by Cathy Fisher in the enhanced his appeal to libertarians, given the fame Huntington Library in . This account stated of Cassius the conspirator against Caesar. that Brown ‘gave the design for the temple of Wood saw various similarities between Palmyra and Concord and Victory, which raised him into some Great Britain, in one being surrounded by desert degree of estimation as an architect’]. and the other by seas, aiding both by riches through Michael Bevington, ‘The South Front’, Templa trade and defence, in both having prospered Quam Dilecta , XI, Stowe, , for fuller accounts through independence and in both having sound of relevant letters and evidence. government. ‘To Wood the story of Palmyra was a Richard Hewlings, ‘A Palmyra ceiling in Lincoln’, portent of the future of Great Britain’, according to Architectural History , XXXI, , – . Mr John M. Monro, ‘Palmyra – A Portent?’ Saudi Hewlings recorded all the examples listed as type Aramco World , XXXII, No. , September/October A in the appendix to the present article, except for . that at Warwick Castle, but followed Fitz-Gerald, The influence of Palmyra was also evident in regal Norfolk House Music Room , cit. , , in dating the circles. The Prince of Wales, aged , drew one of example at Woburn (see infra , note ). The present the Palmyra temples set in a northern landscape in article also refines and revises his evidence for the about , perhaps influenced by Chambers date of the Stowe example. [David Watkin, ‘Enlightened Farmer George’, Olga Zoller, ‘Giovanni Battista Borra disegnatore e Country Life , CXCVIII, March , ]. The architetto nel Levante e in Inghilterra’, in Giuseppe Prince of Wales, of course, could have been an Dardanello, Sperimetare L’Architettura: Guarini, occupant of Stowe’s own Palmyrene room. Juvarra, Alfieri, Borra e Vittone , Turin, , In contrast to Stowe’s authoritarian bed, Robert – . Adam’s State Bed at Osterley of featured motifs The Garter Room first used the Corinthian order at of Venus and the owners’ family [Eileen Harris, Stowe, apart from the statue of George II (first Osterley Park, Middlesex , London, , –]. recorded in August ): this might signify a regal Stuart Piggott, The Druids , London, , ; link [Clarke, op. cit. , ]. Bevington, ‘Development’, cit. , . In the Rotondo, where he replaced a statue of Venus Horace Walpole made at least two visits to Woburn, with one of Bacchus, in the frieze of the south in October , and after the State Bedroom was portico, and in the Blue Room ceiling. He also decorated. Following the latter visit he commented attributed his survival from a serious illness to on the Palmyrene ceiling. For the earlier visit, see drinking wine [Bevington, ‘South Front’, cit. , ]. Horace Walpole’s letter to George Montagu, Wood could have found a reference to Zenobia in October , where Walpole wrote that ‘the Ben Jonson, Masque of Queens of . Jonson house is in building’ [Christopher Hussey, ‘Woburn
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Abbey, Bedfordshire – II. Some Georgian Earl Temple, ‘The man to virtue and to wit allied’ as Craftsmen’, Country Life , CXVIII, September , he was described in a poem of probably [The , ]. For the later visit see Paget Toynbee Grenville Papers , I, vii], hid his wit under the guise (ed.), ‘Horace Walpole’s Journals of Visits to of virtue, like another libertarian, Thomas Hollis, in Country Seats &c.’, The Walpole Society , , XVI, his double portrait for Harvard College [Patrick – , . The two visits, however, seem to have Eyres, ‘Thomas Hollis ( – ): an been conflated in Fitz-Gerald, Norfolk House Music introduction’, The Invisible Pantheon , New Room , cit. , , followed by Hewlings, op. cit. , , Arcadian Journal , No. / , , – . The and in the otherwise excellent discussion by Zoller, location of the statue of Religion next to that of op. cit.. For the date of work in the state rooms, such Liberty may have owed something to the addition of as the State Bed, done up in , see Christopher ‘otherwise Tedmor in the Desart’ to Wood’s Palmyra Hussey, ‘The Opening of Woburn Abbey’, Country title, a reference to Kings . and Chronicles ., Life , CXVII, March , , . and the tradition that the libertarian city of Palmyra Even Queen Victoria is said to have held her only was originally built by King Solomon. ‘drawing-room’ in a private house in this very room . According to Mordaunt Crook, op. cit. , , the with its mixture of republican and royalist motifs following examples of reticulated coffering were [Michael Bevington, Stowe House , London, , taken from Wood’s Palmyra : Bowood ( – ), ]. The significance of the April continues: Compton Verney ( c. – ) and Audley End Queen Anne was crowned on this day and in recent ( – ). times her portrait has been hung on the west wall. Hewlings, loc. cit.. George Clarke, ‘The Lady with the Squint: An I am grateful to Richard Hewlings for drawing my Examination of Revolutionary Iconography at attention to this ceiling, which is further discussed Stowe’, in La Grecia Antica Mito e Simbolo per l’Età in Arthur Oswald, ‘Milton Abbey, Dorset—V’, della Grande Rivoluzione , Milan, , – . Country Life , CXL, July , , . Charles Chenevix-Trench, Portrait of a Patriot: London, Sir John Soane’s Museum, SM – . A Biography of John Wilkes , Edinburgh and Hexagons were a feature of Baalbek, perhaps London, , , – . supporting the argument for the Baalbek inspiration Earl Temple also had a shrine to Liberty erected in of this temple via Dr Richard Pococke [see Wood’s the Temple of Concord and Victory in or soon after ‘Most Entire Temple’, plate XXIV, ‘The Lacunarii’]. [Benton Seeley, Stow e: A Description ..., London, Buckingham and Stowe, , ].
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