1 Dublin Journal, 4–6 April 1769.

2 McParland, Edward, ‘James Gandon and the Royal Exchange Competition, 1768–69’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 102 (1972), pp. 58–75.Google Scholar

3 Freeman’s Journal, 13–16 August 1768, cited in ibid., p. 59.

4 The original advertisement, placed in the Dublin Journal of 4–6 April 1769, subsequently ran in the editions of 8–11 April; 13–15 April; 15–18 April; 18-20 April; and 22–25 April. The amended advertisement, noting the apprenticeship to Rose, appeared first on 27–29 April, and was repeated once on 2–4 May.

5 McParland, , ‘James Gandon and the Royal Exchange Competition’, p. 70.Google Scholar

6 Fraser, Murray, ‘Public Building and Colonial Policy in Dublin’, Architectural History, 28 (1995), pp. 102–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 Maurice, Craig, The Architecture of Ireland (London, 1982), p. 244.Google Scholar

8 James Wyatt’s architectural practice in Ireland has been described as ‘the most important decorative influence at the time’s. McParland, Edward, James Gandon: Vitruvius Hibernicus (London, 1985), p. 41 Google Scholar. More recently, John Martin Robinson has noted that ‘the Wyatt style [in domestic interior decoration] became an Irish neoclassical vernacular’. See Robinson, John Martin, James Wyatt: Architect to George III (New Haven and London, 2012), p. 104.Google Scholar

9 Arnold, Dana, ‘The Illusion of Grandeur? Antiquity, Grand Tourism and the Country House’, in The Georgian Country House: Architecture, Landscape and Society, ed. Arnold, Dana (Stroud, 1992), pp. 100–16Google Scholar; Viccy Coltman, Fabricating the Antique: Neoclassicism in Britain, 1760–1800 (Chicago and London, 2007).Google Scholar

10 Arciszewska, Barbara and McKellar, Elizabeth (eds), Articulating British Classicism: New Approaches to Eighteenth-Century Architecture (Aldershot, 2004)Google Scholar; Hanson, Brian, Architects and the ‘Building World’ from Chambers to Ruskin: Constructing Authority (Cambridge, 2003).Google Scholar

11 London, Guildhall Library (hereafter ‘GHL’), MS 6122/3, Plaisterers Company, Court Minutes 1698–1761. Thomas was the son of Francis Weston, a plasterer from Middlesex.

12 For the Rose family, see Beard, Geoffrey, Decorative Plasterwork in Great Britain (London, 1975), pp. 237–44.Google Scholar

13 This description of Rose’s work at Syon House accompanies plate VII, describing the ‘Detail, of parts of the Hall at large’. Robert, and Adam, James, The Works in Architecture, I, no. 1 (July 1773)Google Scholar. Rose’s ‘finely executed’ stucco decorations for the ceiling of the library at Kenwood House, Hampstead, were endorsed in the second number of the Works, published in May 1774.

14 Mowl, Timothy and Earnshaw, Brian, An Insular Rococo: Architecture, Politics and Society in Ireland and England, 1710–1770 (London, 1999), p. 180.Google Scholar

15 Herman, Bernard L. and Guillery, Peter, ‘Negotiating Classicism in Eighteenth-Century Deptford and Philadelphia’, in Articulating British Classicism, pp. 187–225 (p. 188)Google Scholar. On the broader issue, see Dickson, David, ‘Second City Syndrome: Reflections on Three Irish Cases’, in Kingdoms United? Great Britain and Ireland since 1500: Integration and Diversity, ed. Connolly, S. J. (Dublin, 1999), pp. 95–108 Google Scholar; Barnard, Toby, ‘Integration or Separation? Hospitality and Display in Protestant Ireland, 1660-1800’, in A Union of Multiple Identities: The British Isles c.1750–c.1850, ed. Brockliss, L. and Eastwood, D. (Manchester, 1997), pp. 127–46 (p. 128)Google Scholar; and Styles, John and Vickery, Amanda, ‘Introduction’, in Gender, Taste, and Material Culture in Britain and North America 1700-1830, ed. Styles, John and Vickery, Amanda (New Haven and London, 2007), pp. 1–34 (pp. 22–24).Google Scholar

16 Pennsylvania Packet, 4 January 1773.

17 On this topic, see Foster, Sarah, ‘Going Shopping in 18th-century Dublin’, Things, 4 (1996), pp. 32–61.Google Scholar

18 For a distillation of the modernity and novelty of the Adam decorative style, see Wilton-Ely, John, ‘The Adam Style: Reflections on a Revolution in Design’, in The Fusion ofNeo-Classical Principles, ed. Mulvin, Lynda (Dublin, 2011), pp. 105–30.Google Scholar

19 See McDonnell, Joseph, Irish Eighteenth-Century Stuccowork and its European Sources (Dublin, 1991)Google Scholar, and Wells-Cole, Anthony, Art and Decoration in Elizabethan and Jacobean England: The Influence of Continental Prints, 1558–1625 (New Haven and London, 1997).Google Scholar

20 Coltman, , Fabricating the Antique, p. 45.Google Scholar

21 Snodin, Michael and Howard, Maurice, Ornament: A Social History Since 1450 (New Haven and London, 1996), pp. 54–55 Google Scholar. See also Thornton, Peter, Form and Decoration: Innovation in the Decorative Arts 1470-1870 (London, 1998), p. 180 Google Scholar; and Irwin, David, Neoclassicism (London, 1997), pp. 240–43.Google Scholar

22 Casey, Christine, ‘Books and Builders: A Bibliographical Approach to Irish 18th-Century Architecture’ (doctoral thesis, University of Dublin, 1991), p. 28.Google Scholar

23 For a biographical overview, see Iain Gordon Brown, ‘Richardson, George (1737/8–C.1813)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [hereafter ‘ODNB’] at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23553?docPos=1 (accessed on 12 June 2012). See also Colvin, Howard, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600–1840, 3rd edn (New Haven and London, 1995), pp. 810–11.Google Scholar

24 Payments to George Richardson from Robert Adam’s account at Drummond’s bank are recorded between 1764 and 1769. Stillman, Damie, The Decorative Work of Robert Adam (London, 1973), p. 42 Google Scholar. For Richardson’s grand tour, see Ingamells, John (ed.), A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800 (New Haven and London, 1997), p. 811 Google Scholar, and Fleming, John, Robert Adam and his Circle in London and Rome (London, 1978), p. 37 Google Scholar, unnumbered footnote on p. 302.

25 Harris, Eileen, British Architectural Books and Writers, 1556–1785 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 388.Google Scholar

26 Brown, , ‘Richardson, George’ in ODNB.Google Scholar

27 For the earliest notices of each number, see London Evening Post, 26 March 1774 (number I); Public Advertiser, 5 August 1774 (number II); Public Advertiser, 29 August 1774 (number III); Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 28 January 1775 (number IV); Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 18 April 1775 (number V); Morning Chronicle and London Advertiser, 11 September 1775 (number VI); Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 1 June 1776 (number VIII); Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 19 November 1776 (bound volume). This information both expands upon and corrects that compiled in the entry on Richardson’s Ceilings in Nash, Paul W., Savage, Nicholas, Beasley, Gerald, Meritori, John and Snell, Alison (eds), Early Printed Books 1478-1840: Catalogue of the British Architectural Library Early Imprints Collection (hereafter ‘BAL’), 5 vols (Munich, 1994–2003), III, pp. 1639–40Google Scholar. Advertisements for number VII, confirming the original date of issue, have yet to come to light.

28 Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 87.Google Scholar

29 The first four numbers of the Ceilings were available from the publishers Isaac Taylor and Walter Shropshire in London. With the publication of the fifth number, in April 1775, Sayer & Bennett and Wilson & Nicol, both of London, were added to this list. With the announcement of the bound volume, in November 1776, the list was further expanded to include the following distributors: Peter Elmsly and Richardson & Urquhart of London; Daniel Prince of Oxford; Lewis Bull of Bath; John Balfour of Edinburgh; and William Wilson and George Cowen of Dublin.

30 The first number of six plates, published in March 1774, was ‘printed on superfine imperial paper, so as to be coloured’; the same notice advised readers that ‘Several sets will have coloured grounds’ (London Evening Post, 26 March 1774). With the publication of the second number, in August 1774, Richardson added that ‘a few Sets will be coloured and touched up in the Manner of finished Drawings’ (The Public Advertiser, 5 August 1774): copies in the British Library (55.i.18) and the Canadian Centre for Architecture (NA44.R5225 c.2) belong to this category. Hand-coloured copies of the second edition of the book, published in 1793 and retitled A Collection of Ceilings, are held in the V&A Museum (67.H.60) and the Avery Library (AA2950 R39 FF).

31 On the appeal of the subscription method for designers, publishers and consumers, see Archer, John, The Literature of British Domestic Architecture, 1715–1842 (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 12–13.Google Scholar

32 See Casey, , ‘Books and Builders’, pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

33 These were Michael Maguire, Edward Robbins, Francis Ryan and Robert West. The Irish subscribers numbered thirteen in all.

34 D’Arcy, F. A., ‘Wages of Skilled Workers in the Dublin Building Industry 1667–1918’, Saothar, 13 (1990), pp. 21–37 (pp. 24–25)Google Scholar. The wage of 12s. per week is based on an average rate of 24d. per day over a six-day working week. This is calculated for the period 1741–68, for which figures are readily available.

35 Sets with coloured grounds cost 16s. per number (of six plates apiece), while those ‘coloured and touched up in the Manner of finished Drawings’, were priced at 1 guinea per print. The Public Advertiser, 5 August 1774.

36 Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 86 Google Scholar. Richardson announced his training in the Adam architectural practice in a letterpress page accompanying the first fascicle of the Book of Ceilings: entitled ‘To the Public’ and dated 22 March 1774, this page is included in many bound editions of the book, including those in the National Library of Ireland, Trinity College Dublin, the Royal Academy and the Avery Library, Columbia University.

37 Hibernian Journal, 12-15 November 1773; The Public Advertiser, 5 January 1774; The Caledonian Mercury, 11 September 1773.

38 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 19 November 1776. With the publication of the second edition of the Ceilings, Richardson expanded the description of plate XLVIII to read: ‘The Grecian hall at Kedleston is considered by the connoisseurs as one of the most beautiful and perfect compositions of architecture in Europe’. Richardson, George, A Collection of Ceilings (London, 1793), p. 12.Google Scholar

39 The provenance of this copy of the book is unclear, but appears to have been part of the collection of art and architectural titles acquired by the National Library of Ireland from the Royal Dublin Society in the 1860s. In the Catalogue of Books of the Dublin Society, published in 1817, the entry for Richardson’s Ceilings is marked with an asterisk, indicating that it was too valuable to be lent to readers. I am grateful to Honora Faul, Assistant Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the National Library of Ireland, and to Eilise McGuane, for their advice and assistance with the provenance of this edition.

40 A further three plates, XLV, XLVII and XLVIII (comprising part of the eighth fascicle), are also partly coloured. Another edition with coloured grounds is held in the Avery Library, Columbia University: one of two copies of the 1776 edition held in the collection (AA 2950 R391 FF C2), twelve plates alone have coloured grounds (plates XIII-XXIV). The colouring of the National Library of Ireland (hereafter ‘NLI’), RA and Avery editions are all virtually identical, bar minor differences that might be expected from individually hand- coloured books. A further edition with coloured grounds in the Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (195.9 R39 F) however, departs substantially from these editions, employing a broader colour palette and with less consistency across the volume as a whole.

41 In practice, of course, such advice was often ignored.

42 Plates XIII, XIV, XVI, XVII and XVIII of an incomplete, unbound edition of the book in the Irish Architectural Archive, are also annotated in Richardson’s hand (C. P. Curran Collection, 77/6.2,1776). This copy of the book was owned by successive generations of the Stapleton family of stuccodors. See Lucey, Conor, The Stapleton Collection: Designs for the Irish Neoclassical Interior (Tralee, 2007)Google Scholar. Another group of eight plates from the Ceilings, including two annotated with room names (XIII and XVII), are individually catalogued in the collection of prints and drawings housed in the National Library of Ireland (NLI, AD 3558-3565). Their provenance remains unclear. Plates XIII-XVI of a complete bound edition held in the library of Trinity College Dublin (Papyrus Case 83, 1776) are also annotated in Richardson’s hand: here the room names are barely visible, the pages having been trimmed when the book was rebound in the 1970s. This edition is inscribed ’John Louch architect 1830’, presumably the Dublin architect John Howard Louch (1797–1867).

43 Richardson, George, A Book of Ceilings (London, 1776), p. i.Google Scholar

44 Draper’s Hall was remodelled in the 1860s by the architect Herbert Williams. For Williams, see Felstead, Alison and Franklin, Jonathan, Directory of British Architects, 1834-1914,2 vols (London and New York, 2001), II, p. 1001 Google Scholar. Only one of the Richardson ceilings at Dundas House, now the Royal Bank of Scotland, survives. See Gifford, J., McWilliam, C. and Walker, D., Edinburgh, Buildings of Scotland (New Haven and London, 2003), P. 325.Google Scholar

45 It may be significant that Edward Robbins did not list his trade in Dublin street directories. The commercial incentive for tradesmen as subscribers is noted in Archer, , Literature of British Domestic Architecture, p. 10 Google Scholar. English plasterers who subscribed to the Ceilings included Richard Cox of London, and William Roberts of Oxford. No further designs were recorded as executed in the second edition of the Ceilings in 1793.

46 Puetz, Anne, ‘Design Instruction for Artisans in Eighteenth-Century Britain’, Journal of Design History, 12.3 (1999), pp. 217–39 (p. 218)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For the broader issue, see Saumarez-Smith, Charles, Eighteenth-Century Decoration: Design and the Domestic Interior in England (London, 1993), pp. 135–42.Google Scholar

47 Puetz, , ‘Design Instruction for Artisans’, p. 220.Google Scholar

48 Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 71.Google Scholar

49 A number of the plates in the incomplete copy of the book held in the Irish Architectural Archive are annotated with pencil sketches (IAA, Curran collection 77/6.2, plates XIV, XVIII and XXIV). Two individual plates of the Ceilings in the National Library of Ireland, catalogued as part of the Stapleton collection of architectural drawings, also feature pencil sketches (NLI, Stapleton collection, AD 2227 and 2228). Plates VI, XII, XIV and XXII of the edition owned by the Dublin architect John Louch (see note 42 above), are equally annotated with pencil sketches.

50 Lucey, , The Stapleton Collection, pp. 23–25 Google Scholar; Carr, Eugenie, ‘A Catalogue of the Stapleton Family Collection of 45 Drawings in National Library of Ireland’ (master’s thesis, University College Dublin, 1985).Google Scholar

51 The first notices appear in Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 14 February 1777, and Caledonian Mercury, 29 March 1777. The London advertisement states that it was the first of four books and would contain ‘upwards of 400 figures’. The dates of the individual plates indicate that plates I-XXIV of the present volume I, comprising 92 figures, were published on 23 November 1776, and so would have constituted the first ‘book’ in early 1777; plates XXV-LII (also vol. 1) were published on 1 December 1777; plates LIII-LXXX (vol. II) were published on 12 December 1778; and plates LXXXI-CIX (vol. II) were published on 17 April 1779. The two-volume edition of 1779 comprises 423 figures. These announcements indicate that, for the first edition in 1777, Richardson enjoyed the exact same network of distributors /booksellers across the UK (see note 29 above), with the addition of Richard Elliott in Edinburgh.

52 Caledonian Mercury, 17 July 1779.

53 Further to the figures itemized in Appendix 2, other examples include: ‘Melpomene’ (vol. I, plate XXII, fig. 81) as a ‘mechanical painting’ on the front drawing room ceiling at 9 Harcourt Street, Dublin; ‘Terpsichore’ (vol. I, plate XXII, fig. 83) as a composition ornament on the chimneypiece in the street parlour at 62 Eccles Street, Dublin; and ‘Spring’ (vol. I, plate V, fig. 13) as a grisaille painting over the chimneypiece in the dining room at Abbeyleix, County Laois. The plates in Iconology were later used by London-born composition ornament-maker Robert Wellford. See Reinberger, Mark, Utility and Beauty: Robert Wellford and Composition Ornament in America (Newark, 2003), pp. 70–75.Google Scholar

54 Richard Cox is presumably the same ‘Mr. Cox’ who was described by the artist Paul Sandby as ‘a very worthy Clever Fellow and a most excellent plaisterer’, and recommended by him in a letter to Robert Adam dated January 1773. London, Victoria & Albert Museum, National Art Library [hereafter ‘NAL’], MSL/1979/6120, VI.RC Box 18, Letter to Robert Adam from Paul Sandby, 26 January 1773. A Richard Cox, Esq., was a named subscriber to Robert Adam’s Ruins of the Palace of the Emperor Diocletian at Spalatro in Dalmatia (London, 1764). Richard Haddril (or Hadrill) also subscribed to Richardson’s Ceilings in 1776.

55 This work also earned Robbins an entry in the ‘Index of plasterers’ in Jourdain, Margaret, English Decorative Plasterwork of the Renaissance (London, 1926), pp. ix–xiii (p. xii).Google Scholar

56 Robbins is listed at 116 St Stephen’s Green in 1774 in the Georgian Society Records (hereafter ‘GSR’), 4 vols (Dublin, 1909-13), II, p. 109. An ‘Edward Robins, Stucco-man’ is listed in the Dublin Directory at this address for the years 1791 and 1792 but not before, and refers to his son Edward. The Dublin Directory, an alphabetical list of merchants and traders published annually by Peter Wilson between 1751 and 1837, was initially conceived as a supplement to The Gentleman’s and Citizen’s Almanack, which was first published in Dublin by John Watson in 1736. By the end of the eighteenth century, the Directory also included lists of the city’s nobility, clergy and guildsmen.

57 Three of the fascicles of Richardson’s Ceilings were announced in the Hibernian Journal on 24-27 March 1775 (number IV), 13-15 November 1775 (number VI), and 19-21 June 1776 (number VIII). All were available from Robbins’s premises in St Stephen’s Green, Dublin.

58 English plasterers, albeit in small numbers, subscribed to architectural books and treatises during the latter half of the eighteenth century, including Chambers, William, A Treatise on Civil Architecture (London, 1759)Google Scholar, and Paine, James, Plans, Elevations and Sections of Noblemen & Gentlemen’s Houses (London, 1783).Google Scholar

59 Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 19 November 1776. George Cowen, glazier and printseller at 84 Grafton Street, is first listed in the Dublin Directory for 1775. The Wilson family were one of the key businesses that dominated the book trade in Dublin in the eighteenth century.

60 Archer, , Literature of British Domestic Architecture, p. 17.Google Scholar

61 Casey, , ‘Books and Builders’, p. 14.Google Scholar

62 John Archer had earlier subscribed to Iconology (1779) and New Designs in Architecture (1792), and so must have recognized the commercial viability of Richardson’s books in Ireland. Archer and Cawthorne, booksellers, were listed in the Dublin Directory at 18 Crampton Court in 1783-84; thereafter, John Archer alone was listed at the same address in 1785-87, and at 80 Dame Street from 1788. Archer has been described as one of ‘several major Dublin booksellers’ in the late eighteenth century, and one who was part of ‘the more fashionable [end of the] Dublin trade’. Pollard, , Dublin’s Trade in Books, pp. 95, 218Google Scholar. The printer and bookseller William Wilson of Dublin subscribed to eight copies of Lewis, James, Original Designs in Architecture (London, 1780).Google Scholar

63 Pollard, , Dublin’s Trade in Books, p. 93.Google Scholar

64 The designs are illustrated in Harris, John, Robert Adam and Headfort House (London, 1975), figs 37–38.Google Scholar

65 Harris, , British Architectural Books, pp. 33, 83-88.Google Scholar

66 The ceiling of the stair hall is derived from Wallis, N., A Book of Ornaments in the Palmyrene Taste (London, 1771), pl. VIIGoogle Scholar; the decoration of the walls is derived from Darly, Mathias, The Ornamental Architect (London, 1771), pl. XCIVGoogle Scholar. Harris notes that when the first number of the Works in Architecture was published in July 1773, ‘there was little evidence in current English pattern-books and builders’ manuals of the new “antique” manner’. ( Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 87.Google Scholar)

67 The plasterwork by McCullagh and Reynolds was described as ‘somewhat antiquated’ in the accompanying textual description to plate XXI in Malton, James, A Picturesque & Descriptive View of the City of Dublin (London, 1799)Google Scholar. Malton more favourably described Stapleton’s work in the first floor reception rooms as being ‘well worthy of notice […] particularly the ball and drawing rooms’.

68 Dublin Evening Post, 29 October 1782.

69 Extensive searches in genealogical records, street directories and apprenticeship indentures have yielded no conclusive evidence. An Edward Robbins, son of an Edward and Mary Robbins, was born on 8 April 1737 and baptized in the parish of St James, Clerkenwell, on 11 May. See, London, London Metropolitan Archives, P76 / JS1, Item 009, Saint James, Clerkenwell, Composite Register: Baptisms, Marriages, Burials, March 1725 / 6- March 1741/2.

70 GHL, 6122/4, Plaisterers’ Company Court Minutes 1761-93, f. 119. See also Webb, Cliff, London Apprentices Volume 24: Plaisterers’ Company 1597-1662,1698-1800 (London, 2000), p. 47.Google Scholar

71 Bath, Records Office, Freemen’s Estate, ‘Inrollment of Apprentices, 1706-1776’, f. 85.

72 See entry for ‘Robins (or Robbins), Francis, of Bath’ in Roscoe, Ingrid (ed.), A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, 1660—1852 (New Haven and London, 2009), p. 1049.Google Scholar

73 Hibernian Journal, 7-9 January 1784.

74 See description of ‘Stucco workers’ in Campbell, Robert, The London Tradesman (London, 1747), pp. 162–63Google Scholar. The renowned Dublin-based scagliolist Pietro Bossi (fl. 1784-98) listed his trade in the Dublin Directory as ‘Inlayer in Marble and Stucco-Worker’ throughout his career. In 1798, Mrs Robbins, ‘relict of late Francis Robbins’ of Bath, advertised the sale of eight marble chimneypieces ‘Of different Grounds, with Statuary and Vein Astragals’ (Bath Chronicle, 25 January 1798).

75 Dublin, Representative Church Body of Ireland Library, P30 1.1, Combined Register of Baptisms, Marriages and Burials, Parish of St Mark, Dublin, 1730-87. The date of this marriage, ten years before Edward Robbins’s death in 1791, suggests that Edward Robbins II was the son of an earlier relationship.

76 Dublin Chronicle, 20 September 1791.

77 It would seem that the house was built on or before 1747 when it was leased to a Barbara Soubiran for a term of fifty years. Dublin, Registry of Deeds (hereafter ‘RD’), 128/202/86602, memorial of a lease, 9 September 1747. In October 1777, a William Soubiran Esq. transferred his interest in the property to John Stewart, a merchant of Aston’s Quay, for the remainder of the term; this transaction recorded that the house was ‘lately in the possession’ of William Soubiran ‘and his undertenants’, presumably a reference to the Robbins family (RD, 314/293/218133, deed of assignment, 7 October 1777). In June 1779, Stewart assigned his interest in the property to a Peter McDiarmed, Gentleman (RD, 329/562/220564, deed of assignment, 11 June 1779), whose widow Elizabeth, in August 1788, leased the house to Edward Robbins for nine years at £26 10s. sterling p.a. (RD, 447/396/290544, deed of assignment, 16 May 1792).

78 McCabe, Desmond, St Stephen’s Green, Dublin: 1660-187$ (Dublin, 2011), p. 174 Google Scholar. 32 St Stephen’s Green, where Robbins executed Richardson’s design, was itself one of three houses erected on the site of an earlier house built before 1700. See GSR, II, p. 52.

79 Thomas Maude was MP for Tipperary. In 1776, he was created Baron de Montalt in the Peerage of Ireland. See Johnston-Liik, E. M., History of the Irish Parliament, 1692-1800, 6 vols (Belfast, 2002), v, pp. 216–17.Google Scholar

80 The description of plate II, suitable for a ‘Dressing Room’, was obviously ignored by Robbins, Lord Montalt, or both. In the second edition (1793) the text adds that the ceiling was executed ‘in stucco’, but omits Robbins’s (d. 1791) name. The present ceiling is in fact a replica of the late 1980s. Ex. info. David Griffin of the Irish Architectural Archive.

81 Millar, William, Plastering: Plain and Decorative (London, 1879), p. 34.Google Scholar

82 In 1787, Robbins decorated the chapel at Blessington House (dem.), County Wicklow, for the Earl of Hillsborough. Belfast, Public Records Office (hereafter ‘PRONI’), D671/V/360, Downshire papers, ‘Bill of Plaistering & Painting Work Done for the Right Honble. the Earl of Hillsborough at the Church at Blessingtown—Furnishing Materials—per Edward Robbins.’

83 PRONI, D/2433/A/10/1A, ‘Account book for work done on the house and demesne at Caledon from 1779-81’, and D/2433/A/10/1B, ‘Account book for work done on the house and demesne at Caledon from 1781-82’, Caledon papers, 1779–82.

84 Rowan, Alistair, North West Ulster (London, 1979), p. 163.Google Scholar

85 Thomas Cooley subscribed to the Book of Ceilings and to Iconology.

86 Robbins is also a candidate for the Adamesque plaster decoration at 1 Parnell Square in Dublin, the town residence of James Alexander from 1785 and extensively renovated by him between 1788 and 1794. See Lucey, Conor, ‘Keeping up Appearances: Redecorating the Domestic Interior in Late Eighteenth-Century Dublin’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, 111C (2011), pp. 169–92 (pp. 186-89).Google Scholar

87 Dublin Evening Post, 25 June 1782, and Hibernian journal, 8 July 1782. Butler is another largely unknown figure in the literature on Irish plasterwork. See Lucey, , Stapleton Collection, pp. 39,42.Google Scholar

88 Dublin Evening Post, 29 October 1782.

89 Butler’s notice was placed during Robbins’s engagement at Caledon: he may have been responsible for maintaining Robbins’s practice in Dublin — at ‘his house’ — in his absence.

90 RD, 362/331/245088, deed of partnership, 23 February 1783. Appearing less than a year after the dispute with Butler, the business relationship between Robbins and Jorvett may well have been of a similar nature.

91 Dublin, Irish Architectural Archive (hereafter ‘IAA’), 2000/160, ‘Will of Edward Robbins of Dublin’, 1790. The two named executors were Nathaniel Warren, a glazier of Clarendon Street, and Edward Hyland, gentleman, of Cuffe Street. Hyland had previously acted as a witness to Robbins’s partnership agreement with Joshua Jorvett.

92 Dublin Evening Post, 12 February 1780. Quigley boasted that he was ‘perfectly acquainted with the newest Tastes adopted in that great City, either in the permanent or fanciful Style’.

93 PRONI, D/2433/A/10/1A and lB, Caledon papers, ‘Account book for work done on the house and demesne at Caledon from 1779-81’, and ‘Account book for work done on the house and demesne at Caledon from 1781-82’. Quigley also provided carpentry for James Alexander’s house in Dublin. See Lucey, , ‘Keeping up Appearances’, pp. 186–89Google Scholar. We might also speculate that Quigley and Robbins had already known one another in a professional capacity in England.

94 Dublin Chronicle, 29 March 1791.

95 Dublin Chronicle, 20 September 1791. Edward Robbins and Ann Wright were married in 1781, ten years before his death, suggesting that Edward junior had been born out of wedlock some years before the marriage was solemnized, or, more likely, that Ann had adopted him as the fruit of her husband’s first marriage (in England?).

96 On 16 May 1792, Ann Robbins sold her interest in the house on St Stephen’s Green to Daniel Fuller, gentleman, for £315 sterling (RD, 447/396/290544, deed of assignment).

97 Willemson, Gitta, Dublin Society Drawing Schools: Students and Award Winners 1746—1849 (Dublin, 2000), p. 83.Google Scholar

98 Dublin, City Archives, ‘Dublin City Assembly / Freedom Rolls’, vol. 5,1774-1819, f. 109. Robbins is listed in the Dublin Directory as a ‘Stucco-man’ at Wood Street between 1793 and 1800.

99 A mortgage, dated 30 November 1797, recites that Edward Robbins, ‘Stucco Man’, had taken a lease on a plot of ground in Hansard Street in 1796, had since ‘built one good and substantial dwelling house’ and, for the sum of £500, had transferred his interest to Thomas Baker, stonecutter (RD, 509/344/333362, deed of mortgage, 30 November 1797).

100 Dublin, National Archives of Ireland, Bryan Bolger papers, bundle’S’, ‘Plastering & Whitening Done for The Late John Scott Esqr. at One of his Houses in Hartcourt [sic] Street—Furnishing Materials—by Edward Robbins’. This work was measured on 16 May 1807.

101 In 1808/9, Robbins had served as a warden of the guild. In a humorous twist of fate, one of the wardens serving under Robbins during his first term as guild master was James Butler of Buckingham Street, son of the same James Butler whom Robbins’s father had dismissed from his employment in 1782.

102 Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, 4.B.31, ‘Report on the Trades and Manufacturers of Dublin C1834’, ff. 29–35. An Edward Robbins married a Frances Baker in Dublin in 1796. Index to the Act or Grant Books, and to Original Wills, of the Diocese of Dublin 1634–1799 (Dublin, 1894), p. 732.Google Scholar

103 Irwin, David, Neoclassicism (London, 1999), p. 213.Google Scholar

104 Baker, Malcolm, ‘Public Images for Private Spaces? The Place of Sculpture in the Georgian Domestic Interior’, journal of Design History, 20.4 (2007), pp. 309–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

105 Clifford, Timothy, ‘The Plaster Shops of the Rococo and Neo-Classical Era in Britain’, Journal of the History of Collections, 4.1 (1992), pp. 39–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

106 Ibid. See also Clifford, Timothy, ‘John Bacon and the Manufacturers’, Apollo, 122 (October 1985), pp. 288–304.Google Scholar

107 See Lucey, Conor, “Made in the New Taste”: Domestic Neoclassicism and the Dublin Building Industry, 1765-1801’ (doctoral thesis, University College Dublin, 2008), pp. 92–93, 217–18, 222–24.Google Scholar

108 Dublin Evening Post, 2 February 1779; Dublin Journal, 17 August 1780. 100

109 PRONI, 0/1514/1/2/11, Hervey Bruce papers, letter from William Salmon, Dublin, to an unnamed party, undated. A transcript of this letter, accompanied by images of the plaster roundels referred to, is reproduced in Lucey, , The Stapleton Collection, pp. 334–35.Google Scholar

110 ’I intend going to London in about six weeks time and will bring from there a Great assortment of Mouldings of which I will send you Patterns on my Return.’ Ibid.

111 NAL, 37.Y Box I, ‘A Catalogue of the Statues, Bass Reliefs, Bustos, &c. of Charles Harris, Statuary’, undated. Items described in this catalogue, including ‘Novae Nuptiae’ and ‘Apollo in his Carr’, correspond to plaster bas-reliefs found in Dublin houses, including those built and decorated by William Salmon.

112 Works in Architecture, II, part IV (1779), pl. VI.Google Scholar

113 See for example, plate XIII (section of ‘a banqueting room’), plate CVI (’The Section of the Side-board side of the Dining Parlour’) and CLXIV (’A Design for a Cieling’) in The Builder’s Magazine, published in monthly instalments by Francis Newbery, London, between September 1774 and October 1778; plates LVI and LVII (’the four sides of a room ornamented with stucco proper for an eating parlour’) in Crunden, John, Convenient and Ornamental Architecture (London, 1785)Google Scholar; and plate XXIX (’Two designs for ceilings’) in Pain, William, Pain’s British Palladio (London, 1786).Google Scholar

114 NLI, Stapleton collection, AD 2231, 2233, 2284, 2354,2357, and 2361.

115 On the topic of inanimate objects as mediators of social and cultural agency, see Shirley Campbell, ‘The Captivating Agency of Art: Many Ways of Seeing’, in Beyond Aesthetics: Art and the Technologies of Enchantment, ed. Pinney, Christopher and Thomas, Nicholas (Oxford, 2001), pp. 117–35.Google Scholar

116 Petition for copyright law printed in the Commons Journal, 23 February 1797, and cited in Clifford, ‘The Plaster Shops’, p. 44.

117 For an overview of Harris’s career, see Roscoe, (ed.), A Biographical Dictionary of Sculptors in Britain, pp. 577–78.Google Scholar

118 Lucey, , The Stapleton Collection, pp. 36–38.Google Scholar

119 The design for the ‘Hercules and Omphale’ centrepiece of plate II represents something of a conundrum. Early impressions of the plate, with handwritten ink manuscript room dimensions and /or plate numbers, have a different design to later impressions with printed figures: this presumably corresponds to the original publication date in 1774 of the first fascicle of six designs (plates I-VI), and the publication of the complete book in 1776. This is the only design for a ceiling bas-relief that changed over time. The original executed version at 32 St Stephen’s Green has since been altered and so cannot be used for comparative purposes. See note 80 above.

120 Columbani’s, Placido A New Book of Ornaments (London, 1775)Google Scholar and Variety of Capitals, Freezes, and Corniches (London, 1776)Google Scholar, were available in Dublin from Cornelius Callaghan, a glazier and painter, and map and printseller of Great Britain Street (Dublin Journal, 10–13 April 1788). A copy of A New Book of Ornaments autographed by the Irish architect Francis Johnston and dated March 1790, is held in the Irish Architectural Archive (IAA, 77/6.1). For Columbani’s publications, see Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 168 Google Scholar, and BAL, I, pp. 380–81. Columbani worked for Frederick Hervey, Earl Bishop of Derry, at Downhill, county Derry, 1783–85. See Rankin, Peter, Irish Building Ventures of the Earl Bishop of Derry (Belfast, 1972), pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

121 Casey, , ‘Books and Builders’, p. 18 Google Scholar. Pollard, Mary, Dublin’s Trade in Books 1550–1800 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 80–97.Google Scholar

122 IAA, Curran Collection, 77.6/4 (where it has been incorrectly catalogued as the title page of a book). There is no record of this title in Harris, , British Architectural Books, p. 176.Google Scholar

123 For Pergolesi’s work at Syon, see Croft-Murray, Edward, Decorative Painting in England, 1537-1837, 2 vols (London, 1970), II, pp. 256–57Google Scholar. Pergolesi also provided designs for Sir William Chambers: see Harris, John, A Catalogue of British Drawings for Architecture, Decoration, Sculpture and Landscape Gardening 1550-1900 in American Collections (New Jersey, 1971), pp. 156–58Google Scholar. For Pergolesi’s publications, see Harris, , British Architectural Books, pp. 368–69Google Scholar; BAL, in, pp. 1426-428; and The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection vol. II: British Books, Seventeenth through Nineteenth Centuries [hereafter ‘Millard’] (Washington and New York, 1998), pp. 204–06.Google Scholar

124 The first number was announced in June 1777 (Public Advertiser, 3 June 1777), but the second was not available until the following January, the author having been ‘obliged to postpone the Publication […] on Account of his particular Engagements with several of the Nobility, which prevented him from fulfilling his promise to the Public’ (Public Advertiser, 14 January 1778). The same excuse was offered for the longer delay — on this occasion, more than two years’ duration — when numbers III and IV were announced (Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 19 April 1780). The publication of number XII was announced on three separate occasions in April 1790, May 1791 and March 1792 (World, 27 April 1790; World, 16 May 1791; Argus of the Constitution, 17 March 1792). These advertisements indicate that only in April 1790, ‘at the desire of many Subscribers, Non-Subscribers, and Artists’, was the original proposed extent of 12 numbers enlarged to conclude at 20 numbers (in two volumes) and, from May 1791, to 24 numbers. This present overview corrects, in part, the complex publishing history summarized in BAL, III, pp. 1426–427, and in Millard, pp. 204–06.

125 The other named locations for subscriptions were: Mr Taylor, Holborn; Mr Boydell’s, Cheapside; Mr Sayer, Fleet Street; Mr Faden, Charing Cross; Mr Robson, New Bond Street; Mr Bowles, Cornhill; and Mr Mollini’s, Oxendon Street, Haymarket. This confirms that Pergolesi was willing to enter into commercial partnerships with publishers. Individual entries on all of these individuals — bar ‘Mr Mollini’ — may be found in the list of ‘Printers and Publishers’ in BAL, v, pp. 2949–3042.

126 Pergolesi’s retained the same London address (16 Broad Street, Golden Square) between 1780 and 1790, suggesting that his stay in Dublin was not a lengthy one.

127 Archer, , Literature of British Domestic Architecture, p. 14 Google Scholar. For an illuminating account of the socio-political differences between the two provincial capitals of Dublin and Edinburgh, and their impact on domestic architectural design, see Rowan, Alistair, ‘Edinburgh: The Town House in the Capital of North Britain’, in The Eighteenth-Century Dublin Town House, ed. Casey, Christine (Dublin, 2010), pp. 258–75.Google Scholar

128 Wedgwood, for example, was already established in Dublin by 1770. See Reynolds, Mairéad, ‘Wedgwood in Dublin’, in Irish Arts Review, 1.2 (1984), pp. 36–39.Google Scholar

129 The first four numbers, published between June 1777 and April 1780, were dedicated to the Duke of Northumberland. In May 1791, he announced that ‘he will adorn, by permission, each future Number, with the Portrait of some illustrious character’ (World, 16 May 1791).

130 ‘By the 1750s dedications were seldom added in expectation of a reward, and instead were included in the hope that the dedicatee’s name would help to increase sales.’ Archer, , Literature of British Domestic Architecture, p. 9.Google Scholar

131 A comparison between the editions of Pergolesi’s designs held at the RIBA and the V&A (two copies) reveal that the dates of the individual plates of the RIBA edition have been altered — presumably c. 1790/1, when the project was expected to expand to 24 fascicles: for example the dates of plates 1-5, originally published on 1 May 1777, have been altered to 1 May 1788. The edition in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, has also been amended: within the first fascicle, plate 3 retains its original date of 1777, while the others (plates 1, 2, 4 and 5) have been amended to 1787.

132 Dublin Evening Post, 6 May 1786.

133 Gloucester, Gloucestershire Archives, Badminton Muniments, D2700/RA2/17, ‘James Saggiani’s household accounts’, 1781-84. This includes a reference to ‘Pergolesi for a ceiling ornament, 1781’.

134 Research in the Registry of Deeds, Dublin, indicates that he did not take a leasehold interest in property on Capel Street in Dublin and so presumably rented rooms from a landlord/proprietor (RD, Index Book 90: City of Dublin A-J, 1780–92). There is no listing for Pergolesi in the Dublin street directories for 1786-87, or any year thereafter to 1790–91.

135 A list of subscribers was promised from 1790 onwards, when Pergolesi also announced the publication of the ‘Title, Dedication, and Index of the Work, in English, German, French, and Italian’ (World, 27 April 1790).

136 Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, 22 (3 November 1785–13 July 1786), p. 135 Google Scholar. The Royal Dublin Society (hereafter ‘RDS’)’s purchase of two sets, comprising ‘eleven Numbers in each Sett’, cost £7 3s. in May 1786. The whereabouts of these sets is at present unknown. They are not recorded in the first library catalogue of the RDS, compiled in 1796/7 and published in 1806, nor in any catalogue thereafter. It may be that, intended for a studio environment, they were not regarded as a library acquisition. Given that much of the RDS library contents formed the principal deposit of the newly founded National Library of Ireland in 1879, however, it may be significant that a fragment of plate 17 (design no. LXXXIV), published on 1 March 1779, is catalogued as part of the collection of architectural drawings (NLI, AD, 3566).

137 The Society’s School of Ornament, somewhat surprisingly, did not acquire engravings of Raphael’s celebrated grotesque decorations for the Vatican Loggie until 1793. Turpin, John, A School of Art in Dublin since the Eighteenth Century (Dublin, 1995), p. 58.Google Scholar

138 The stellar form of the ceiling in the rear drawing room is taken from plate 35 (no. CLXXXIV). The ground on which this house was built was leased to Samuel Read, City Plumber and Alderman, in 1784 (RD, 403/197/266606, deed of lease, 25 March 1784). Read, a prominent property developer in Dublin, leased the completed house to the Revd Henry Palmer, Archdeacon of Ossory, in 1787 (RD, 392/549/259937, deed of lease, 12 November 1787).

139 The ceiling of the ‘Diana Room’ is a combination of plate 35 (nos CLXXXIV and CLXXXV), and part of plate 30 (no. CXLIV). The original design, now lost, further comprised elements from plate 30 (nos CXLV and CXLVI), and plate 34 (no. CLXXVII). Once part of the Stapleton Collection, it is illustrated in Curran, C. P., ‘Dublin Plaster Work’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, 70.1 (1940), pp. 1–56, pl. IX.Google Scholar

140 For Belvedere House, see Casey, , Dublin, pp. 173–75Google ScholarPubMed; Lucey, , The Stapleton Collection, pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

141 Küttner, K. G., Briefe Über Irland (Leipzig, 1785)Google Scholar cited in Curran, , Dublin Decorative Plasterwork, p. 73.Google Scholar

142 Proceedings of the Royal Dublin Society, 20 (6 November 1783–19 August 1784), p. 43, and 23 (2 November 1786–26 July 1787), p. 94Google Scholar. See also Turpin, , A School of Art in Dublin, pp. 52, 61.Google Scholar

143 Alexander’s selection of Thomas Cooley, the English architect of the most conspicuous emblem of Neoclassicism in Ireland, of Robbins, the English agent of the Adamesque decorative style, and of Daniel Quigley, an Irish carpenter with experience in London, was both shrewd and calculated to obtain the optimal effect. The building of Caledon invites further speculation beyond the scope of the present article: Cooley was resident in Dublin from 1769 until his death in 1784. Robbins was, from 1775 at least, the Dublin agent for the individual fascicles of Richardson’s Ceilings, for which Cooley was a named subscriber. In 1781-82, Robbins worked under Cooley’s supervision at Caledon. Cooley may have contracted with Robbins (and Quigley) directly, and they may in fact have worked together in England prior to their arrival in Ireland.

144 Hibernian Chronicle, 27 August 1781.

145 Finn’s Leinster Journal, 22 March 1780.

146 While James Gandon produced an elevation for Heywood in 1771, Edward McParland ascribed the house largely to his client Frederick Trench’s ‘modish but amateurish ingenuity’. ( McParland, , James Gandon, p. 121.Google Scholar) Moreover, although Gandon subscribed to all of Richardson’s books, it seems unlikely that he would have replicated one of his designs so unequivocally.

147 Sennett, Richard, The Craftsman (London, 2008), p. 59.Google Scholar

148 No record of Weston’s work in Ireland has yet come to light, and he was certainly back in England by 1780: then living near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, and maintaining the distinction conferred upon by him by association with the Rose firm, Weston continued to decorate in ‘the Palmyrene and Antique Taste’ (Oxford Journal, 25 March 1780).

149 Curran, , ‘Dublin Plaster Work’, p. 46.Google Scholar

150 Pain, William, The Practical Builder (London, 1774), p. 3 Google Scholar. In the preface to this book, Pain refers to ‘The very great Revolution […] which of late has so generally prevailed in the Stile of Architecture, especially in the decorative and ornamental Department’.