Ceiling
Category
Stone
Date
Unknown
Materials
Lime plaster, oil paint and gilding
Measurements
10.82 mm x 7.24 metres x 5.22 metres
Collection
Berrington Hall, Herefordshire (Accredited Museum)
NT 618675
Summary
Dining room ceiling This is the largest room in the house and it is has a higher ceiling than elsewhere. The plasterwork is divided into three bays; a central square accommodating a painted roundel circumscribed with festoons; rectangular panels are set to either side, each further subdivided to accommodate three figurative panels. Appropriately for a dining room the central inset roundel were painted in the style of Biagio Rebecca with a composite scene based on Raphael’s Banquet of the Gods and the Council in the Villa Farnesina, Rome. Bacchus, god of wine, and Ceres, goddess of corn, appear in the two rectangular panels at either ends of the room. When Lord Torrington visited in 1784, the walls were painted “flesh coloured”. They were painted their present shade of sage green around 1908 by the 1st Lord Crawley.
Provenance
The ceiling is contemporary with Henry Hollands original design. Architectural features both internal and external including decorative schemes and fixtures all accepted in lieu of death-duties, along with the buildings and estate, and transferred to the National Trust in 1957.