Burlington House

     I was in London to catch the Richard Dadd exhibition at the Royal Academy on Piccadilly.  While I was there I took the opportunity to revisit the 'John Madeski Fine Rooms', that is the rooms that were designed for 'display' when the building was a private residence, what is called in France an 'hotel particulier'. They currently have a dual function, part administrative and part gallery for the RA permanent collection.  When starting this post I believed that they were of a piece, but the history is quite complex.  It is because of the tact of later interventions that the rooms possess such a unity of style.

     I presume that beneath the plaster, the shell of the original late 17th century house survives.  Either way, Lord Burlington - Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington & 4th Earl of Cork - working with Colen Campbell undertook a major redesign of the house in the first half of the 18th century.  Now, we have mentioned Burlington before, and I tend to see him rather as a pantomime villain in the history of British architecture.  It was he who successfully ousted the pragmatic Wren school of English baroque architecture, pushing British architecture into the first its periodical phases of doctrinally driven quests for purity, both stylistic and moral.  Burlington had a desire to return architecture to a state of pristine authentic Antique classicism, purged of the licentiousness of the Baroque which he, a good Whig, associated with Roman Catholicism.  To that end he saw the work of the Venetian architect Andrea Palladio as a contemporary embodiment of Antique virtue, ignoring Palladio's obvious Mannerist Style.  But it was more than that.  As I have written here before it was an attempt to change the orientation of British taste from France to the Italian peninsular in general, and the Venetian Republic in particular; promoting Italian opera, importing Italian singers, and painters.  And so architecture in Britain took a turn towards the dull, and the understanding of Palladio's work skewed to fit Burlington's moral and political vision.  Of course such quests are always riven by such ambiguities and contradictions. We have seen these play out at Houghton Hall, particularly in the interior, and we see the same things at Burlington House. 

    The façade was remodelled after Palladio's Palazzo Iseppo Porto in Vicenza, but without the Mannerist boldness of the original.  One might say emasculated.* The interiors were also remade.  The exterior was, I suppose, a relatively straightforward intellectual exercise.  The interior, as at Houghton, was not.  Palladio left no instructions for interior decoration of his buildings, not designed any furniture.  In any case, the villas, which not designed as a whole for clients as wealthy as the British aristocracy, were decorated in a very simple manner.  Burlington and Campbell therefore turned to the work of Inigo Jones, the early 17th century court architect, who introduced to Britain a more consistent and intellectually thorough use of the classical orders, was interested in Classical Antiquity, and produced designs for interior decoration.  Jones was promoted also because he was British.  The irony of this is that the Jones's designs for interiors e.g. ceilings, fireplaces etc. thoroughly influenced by contemporaneous French taste.

     And so, finally, to the actual rooms. Some six in all - on the Piano Nobile, or Bel Etage of the original structure. They are approached from the Main Stairs, created in their present position in c.1815 during alterations for Lord George Cavendish by Samuel Ware.  On the two side walls are two massive canvasses by the Venetian artist Sebastiano Ricci painted 1713-15 for Burlington's mother Lady Juliana, the Dowager Countess of Burlington.  the ceiling painting, 'The Glorification of the Inigo Jones', is by William Kent.
     Of the six rooms, five are situated on the s, entrance side of the house, while the Tenant Gallery is on the N side i.e. it is in the rear pile of what is a double pile house.  The southern rooms are arranged in an enfilade.  That is, all the communicating doors line up.  The ceilings of the three centre rooms share the same iconography ie Cupid and Psyche. Mahogany doors throughout.  With the exception of the General Assembly Room, they are almost completely devoid of furniture.

     The most important in terms of decoration is the Saloon, in the middle of the entrance front.  It is the work of William Kent (1685-1748), and the Roman sculptor Giovanni Battista Guelphi, both of whom Burlington collected on one of two his Grand Tours to Italy.**  Although the doorcases are very correct, the overall effect is Baroque; there are stucco putti on the frontoni, and elaborate frames for paintings (that, at some point, have been removed).**  The ceiling has a deep cove and a central panel in the French manner.  Originally it was painted by Kent in his Baroque Illusionistic style.  Only the central panel 'The Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche' survives.  The ceiling is currently undergoing restoration.

     To the east of the saloon are three rooms: the first, is the Richard Sharpe Council Room. It originally served as the head of the main staircase hall, and contains a very good ceiling by Sebastiano Ricci of 'Cupid and Jupiter'.  I believe it was also the original location of the two Ricci paintings on the Main Stairs.  Now, it is mainly the work of Samuel Ware.

     Beyond that is the former ball room, now the Reynolds Room, constructed by Ware from a number of smaller spaces.  It is a triple cube room (roughly 20 x 20 x 60ft) and has a particularly fine ceiling, also by Ware, in the approved Burlington manner.  Very sculptural.  Richly detailed full cornice.  Ware's work here and in the General Assembly Room is excellent but heavier, richer and more robust - it has more heft - then the earlier worker.  20th century figurative painting on the walls - the likes of John Nash, Carel Weight, L S Lowry, and dame Laura Knight.  At the far end of the room to the left is the crepuscular Tenant Gallery, containing 19th century art, for example, by Waterhouse, and Cadogan Cowper.

     To the west of the saloon are the remaining two rooms.  The first is the 'The Lee & James C. Slaughter Room', formerly the Secretary's Room, with a painting on the ceiling by William Kent, 'The Assembly of the Gods'.

     The furthest room was once the State Dining Room but is now The Generally Assembly Room.  It is perhaps the friendliest room in the suite, having furniture etc.  Ceiling is again by Ware in the Burlingtonian taste.  Central panel, 'The Meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne', is however, by Sebastiano Ricci. N door by Richard Norman Shaw.  Full cornice with a richly decorated frieze. On entering the room my first thought was that it had been decorated by Davis Hicks.  The pinky-orange walls just seemed to be the sort of thing he'd do. More twentieth century figurative art, skied, on the e wall.  Rather homely in its arrangement.

      I have, sadly, to confess to a slight disappointment, for the rooms are somewhat bare, lacking as they do curtains, furniture, and the light fittings are particularly intrusive.  If money, allowed I 'd like to see curtains, chairs, perhaps even brocade wallpaper, and the odd bit of furniture - console tables, and the like, that could be used to display sculpture, perhaps even larger pieces of ceramic. It would certain raise the temperature of the rooms.

     Finally, apologies for the rather poor photographs.  It is said the poor workman blames his tools; I am going to blame the circumstances - poor weather and the presence of people.

*Colen Campbell's 'Vitruvius Britannicus' depicts the façade of the house with statues and urns.  I suspect that they were never erected.  The other interesting thing to note, is the oddly divided nature of the design: grand palazzo on the entrance front and something all together plainer, rather High Renaissance, on the garden front.  Burlington House is not alone in Campbell's work to demonstrate this: both Houghton Hall and Stourhead have contrasting Palladian and Mannerist facades.  Perhaps the influence of Sir John Vanbrugh at work: both Castle Howard and Seton Delaval have Doric entrance fronts contrasting with Corinthian and Ionic garden facades.

** According to Rudolph Wittkower Burlington soon tired of Guelfi, just as he had  previously tired of James Gibbs and later would tire of Colen Campbell.

*** No mention of the original contents of the frames in the Survey of London.  Elsewhere on the internet, and probably erroneously, it is suggested that they were designed to contain paintings by Pellegrini - four of the original ten by the artist that decorated Burlington House and are now at Narford Hall in Norfolk.  It has also been suggested that they were fitted with mirrors as part of Samuel Ware's work on the house.