Our Decorative Collection of Images

King's College Chapel AA98_04190

KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, Cambridge, Interior view. The organ is dominant, standing on the screen which divides the chapel and ante-chapel. It was built in 1605, and the case was made by Chapman and Hartop. It has since been enlarged. The rib vaulting of the chapel ceiling is also visible. Photographed by Eric de Mare. Date range: 1945-1980.

© 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

National Liberal Club BL08407

NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB, Whitehall Place, City of Westminster, London. Interior detail of the fireplace and dais in the Gladstone Library, December 1887. The picture was taken shortly after completion of the building for the architect Alfred Waterhouse. Bedford Lemere was a noted interiors photographer, and his archive is held by the National Monuments Record.

© Historic England