Biblical and mythical scenes Gallery

Chiswick House, Red Velvet Room ceiling J970259

CHISWICK HOUSE, London. Interior. View of the ceiling in the Red Velvet Room.
The ceiling is inset with painted panels attributed to William Kent and has usually been interpreted as an allegory of the Arts. The panels around the edge, for example, incorporate musical instruments, portrait roundels of gods and goddesses (Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mars, Diana and Apollo) and their appropriate Zodiac signs. In the central panel the messenger god Mercury hovers above a stone arch, below which is a group of figures with further emblems of the visual arts: Architecture is represented by a bare-chested woman with a set square and a cherub with a plan of a Roman temple, Sculpture by a fallen bust of Inigo Jones, and Painting by a woman unveiling a self-portrait of Kent.
The radical alternative interpretation of this symbolism is that it alludes to the ritual of the Royal Arch masonic lodge. Red is the Royal Arch colour, so the red velvet on the walls is symbolic, as is the red drape which is being removed to reveal Kent's portrait in the ceiling. The traditional implements of the architect and sculptor, depicted in the ceiling, are likewise masonic emblems, while the combination of an arch below a rainbow which occurs in the ceiling painting was apparently a common subject of early Royal Arch lodge banners. The suggestion, therefore, is that this room could have been designed by Burlington and Kent - both of whom were certainly freemasons - to function as a masonic meeting place

© Jeremy Young

The tempting serpent EMM01/01/042

Wells Cathedral, Somerset. Watercolour, by Elsie Matley Moore, of a 14th century stained glass window at Wells Cathedral, depicting the tempting serpent. A handwritten note on the painting reads: 'The tempting serpent, which is unusually well preserved. Its body and the trunk of the tree round which it twines are mainly of old glass. The blue of the body is here and there slightly stained with yellow, which gives it a delicate green tint. Two pieces of the body have been renewed, and the blue of these is of a purplish hue: this is the more strange as the new blue in the rest of the window is of an admirable hue', from The Very Reverend J Armitage Robinson, 1942

© Historic England Archive

Thornhill - Venus and Adonis J920264

ELTHAM PALACE, London. "Venus and Adonis" c.1705 by Sir James THORNHILL (1675-1734). Oil on canvas. One of a group of paintings originally made as overmantels and overdoors for Stoke Edith, Herefordshire

© Historic England

Painting