Decorative Gallery

RMS Aquitania BL26730_002

RMS AQUITANIA. Interior view towards the fireplace in the Palladium Lounge. The Aquitania was launched in 1913 as the third of the Cunard Line express ocean liners (after the Mauretania and Lusitania), and the last four-stack liner to be built. She could carry over 2000 passengers on Cunard's weekly transatlantic service. Photographed here by Bedford Lemere, in August 1923 probably during a stop-over and refit in Southampton

© Historic England

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

Entrance Hall, Sheffield Town Hall BL13722

Town Hall, Pinstone Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire. Interior of Sheffield Town Hall showing the entrance hall and grand staircase. The town hall was designed by E. W. Mountford. This photograph shows the grand staircase of the building with decorative planting supplied by the nurseries of Fisher, Son and Sibray, possibly in preparation for the opening of the town hall by Queen Victoria on May 21st 1897. Photographed by Henry Bedford Lemere