{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O321729"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O321729/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NW7034/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2024NW7034/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2024NW7034","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7033","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7032","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7031","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7030","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7029","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7028","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7027","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7026","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7025","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7024","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2024NW7023","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O321729/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O321729","accessionNumber":"1575-1904","objectType":"Ceiling","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"Parts of this ceiling were acquired in 1904 from a house at 15 Hanover Square, London, built for Jervoise Clarke (1743-1808), who was at one time MP for Yarmouth.  The house was built in 1770-1774 by a builder called Walter Cameron, and was probably designed by his son Charles Cameron (ca. 1743-1813), who later went on to become famous as architect to the Empress Catherine the Great of Russia.  His most famous work is at Catherine's country palace at Tsarskoy Selo. The house in Hanover Square is the only house in Britain which is associated with him.","physicalDescription":"Panels from a ceiling from 15 Hanover Square London, probably designed by the architect Charles Cameron, with cast decoration in the neo-classical style and painted panels.  The ceiling showed a large central medallion painted with a goddess (possibly Flora), surrounded by a deep framing band painted with upright, spirally fluted urns.  \n\nAround this is a further circular framing of interlaced garlands of bell flowers against a coloured ground, framing alternate circular panels with cast decoration of putti riding on dolphins with parrot heads, and rectangular panels with curved side, painted with goddesses making libations and sacrifices.  The outer edge of this circular fame is set alternately with trapezoidal panels each cast with a shallow urn flanked by squirrels, and with vesica shaped panels outlined in the bell-flower moudling and containing central circles cast with a design of four urns and four putti. \n\nThe spandrels are set with large, cast motifs of owls with bat wings, against a coloured ground, flanked by baskets with fruit. \n\nTwo sides of the ceiling are flanked with a border of interlaced circles of cast plasterwork, reeded, with small roundels at the intersections and figures of doves (cast) and larger circular cast roundels between the framing. Two sides have narrower borders with cast urns flanking long, rectangular painted panels. \n\nFurther description must be postponed until ceiling can be laid out.  Records state that some of the motifs were re-cast rather than removed at the time of acquisition and it is uncertain whether the ceiling came complete to the Museum.\n\nThe size of the ceiling as a whole was not recorded when it was acquired and cannot now be checked until the pieces can be laid out.  When the ceiling was acquired 110 pieces were listed and many of these are not now identifiable but may be among items now recorded with Temporary Numbers.  A photo-montage from existing snapshots of elements of the ceiling is the departmental files but is not complete. \n","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Cameron, Charles","id":"AUTH316531"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x40048"},"note":"In 2003 the architectural historian John Harris pointed out that this ceiling was from the only house known to have been designed in London by Charles Cameron. It is assumed that he designed the plasterwork as well.  See John Martin Robinson, 'A dazzling adventurer. Charles Cameron: the lost early years', 'Apollo', January 1992, pp. 31-35, a drawing for the ceiling illustrated, as fig. 4, a design for the Dining Parlour Ceiling at 15 Hanover Square, which is in the Sir John Soane Museum. This differs from this ceiling in detail but the overall designs are clearly related.  John Martin Robinson did not, at that date, associate the drawing with the surviving ceiling panels."},{"name":{"text":"Thomas Collins","id":"AUTH317069"},"association":{"text":"maker","id":"x40240"},"note":"plasterer"}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"plaster","id":"AAT14922"},{"text":"oil paint","id":"AAT15050"}],"techniques":[{"text":"casting","id":"AAT53104"},{"text":"painting","id":"x30598"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Ceiling of plaster, with cast decoration and painted panels","categories":[{"text":"Architectural fittings","id":"THES48994"},{"text":"Scotland","id":"THES262877"},{"text":"Woodwork","id":"THES48877"}],"styles":[{"text":"Neo-classicism","id":"x38958"}],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2024NW7034","2024NW7033","2024NW7032","2024NW7031","2024NW7030","2024NW7029","2024NW7028","2024NW7027","2024NW7026","2024NW7025","2024NW7024","2024NW7023"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"E","id":"THES397227"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"002","id":"THES383907"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""},{"current":{"text":"BY005","id":"THES392715"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Plaster panel","id":""}],[{"text":"Plaster panel","id":""}],[{"text":"Plaster panel","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""},{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"for 15 Hanover Square.  Some of the panels were re-cast as a result in difficulty in removal"}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1770-1775","earliest":"1770-01-01","latest":"1775-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":"This is the date of the building of the house"}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"110 parts of this ceiling (not all original) were purchased in 1904 for £52. 10s., form the Old Board Room of the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital, 15 Hanover Square.  The house was built for Jervoise Clarke of Herriard Park, Hampshire.  The papers of the Jervoise family are in the Hampshire Record Office at Winchester.  Building accounts for the Hanover Square House are MSS 6M59.  \n\nSee under Object Production Note for the drawing that suggests that this was the work of Charles Cameron.\n\nWalter Cameron, the father of Charles Cameron, was the builder and it has been assumed that his son acted as architect. Some of the motifs are similar to work that he designed later for the Empress Catherine the Great at Tsarskoy Selo, Russia. A chimeypiece from the same house survives in the collection of the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto.  John Harris mentions this in 'Moving Rooms'. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 166 but the illustration (said to be fig.102) seems to be a confusion with fig. 101.\n\nA green and white marble chimneypiece from 15 Hanover Square (dated about 1774) was offered for sale by Westland London, and illustrated in Country Life, vol. CCXIII, no. 45, 6 November 2019, p. 94. ","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"A ceiling with cast and painted decoration of neo-classical motifs.  The design is composed of concentric circles of ornament with ornamented spandrels and additional shallow arcs of decoration on two opposing ends. ","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"John Martin Robinson, 'A dazzling adventurer. Charles Cameron: the lost early years', 'Apollo', January 1992, pp. 31-35."}],"production":"In 2003 the architectural historian John Harris pointed out that this ceiling was from the only house known to have been designed in London by Charles Cameron. It is assumed that he designed the plasterwork as well.  See John Martin Robinson, 'A dazzling adventurer. Charles Cameron: the lost early years', 'Apollo', January 1992, pp. 31-35, a drawing for the ceiling illustrated, as fig. 4, a design for the Dining Parlour Ceiling at 15 Hanover Square, which is in the Sir John Soane Museum. This differs from this ceiling in detail but the overall designs are clearly related.  John Martin Robinson did not, at that date, associate the drawing with the surviving ceiling panels.","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[{"text":"","id":""}],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[{"text":"Jervoise Clarke","id":"AUTH316532"}],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["1575A-1904","1575C-1904","1575F-1904"],"accessionNumberNum":"1575","accessionNumberPrefix":"","accessionYear":1904,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE","Ceiling","Plaster","Plaster panel"],"assets":["2023NL8365"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-07","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-24","availableToBook":false}}