44 C O N T E X T 1 1 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 1 plasterwork, which first appeared in 1975. This was an important study which, for its breadth of coverage and appreciation of craftsmanship, has never been superseded, even though more recent scholarship has expanded our knowledge of particular periods and individual craftsmen. With the exception of the colour plates, this is a direct reprint of the first edition, with the addition of a short foreword by the contemporary plasterer Jeff Orton and a longer introduction by the decorative conservation practitioner Richard Ireland, who worked on the restoration of the plasterwork at Uppark. Ireland provides a very useful and succinct summary of the advances in technical knowledge that have taken place since 1975, covering materials, techniques and good conservation practice. Beard himself contributes a new preface, which lists some of the literature and archival sources that have become available since the first edition. The short text, running to only 92 pages, is divided into seven chapters. It begins with an outline of the economics of country house building which is all too brief. At the time this was a pioneering approach. Beard’s first tentative steps have subsequently been expanded by my own book on The Making of the English Country House (1975) for the period 1500 to 1640, and Richard Wilson and Alan Mackley’s Creating Paradise (2000) for the later period from 1660 to 1880. The following chapter on materials and methods needs to be read in conjunction with Ireland’s introduction. It leads into a chronological survey divided into four chapters. Of these, the first chapter on the 16th and early 17th centuries is perhaps the most outdated for the modern reader, although it still provides a useful introduction while we await the full publication of Claire Gapper’s research carried out over the last 15 years or so. The chapter on the later 17th century demonstrates the full range of Beard’s exemplary scholarship as he reconstructs the lives and careers of those plasterers whose names he found through an assiduous exploration of the state archives and private papers. The great flowering of decorative plasterwork in England took place in the 18th century. Beard freely confesses that this is his preferred period. He divides the century into two, with an initial domination of the craft by the continental influence of the Italian- speaking Swiss stuccatori such as Cortese, Bagutti, Artari and Vassali, and the Danish-born Charles Stanley mainly working on the great country house projects of the period. Due recognition is paid to a select group of English plasterers, including Isaac Mansfield, Robert Dawson and Thomas Roberts of Oxford, but it was not until the latter part of the century that native craftsmen asserted their predominance. The Rose family in particular exercised a virtual monopoly of country house plasterwork, but there were other provincial schools of some importance such as that of Thomas Stocking of Bristol. There is a brief but instructive summary of the decline of traditional plasterwork in the early 19th century in the face of competition from patent compositions and papier-mâché ornament, and a chapter devoted to Scotland. Although the evolution of stylistic taste from mannerism through baroque and rococo to the delicate patterns of Robert Adam and the beginnings of the gothic revival provide the aesthetic context, it is the contribution of the executant craftsmen that form the real focus of the book. The second half is devoted to a biographical dictionary of the most significant plasterers who are likely to have worked on the country houses of the period. This remains an invaluable work of reference, not least because it is based on solid documented facts, with stylistic attributions cautiously signposted in the manner of Colvin’s great dictionary. Indeed, Beard dedicated his book to Colvin and paid a generous tribute to Rupert Gunnis and his Dictionary of British Sculptors. Further research since 1975 could add to the number of names, but Beard’s list is still the first place to look for those working in the field of historic plasterwork. That, in itself, is an enduring testimony to his scholarship. In welcoming the book back into print, it is necessary to add a note of disappointment. The first edition published by Phaidon had a fullcolour dust jacket, two colour plates and 157 black-and-white plates which positively sparkle on glossy paper. The new edition is a much more sombre production with no dust jacket and all the plates reproduced in black-and-white on the same grade of paper as the text. It does not give the same pleasure to handle but it does mean that it is offered at a competitive price by today’s values. This is a very unkind criticism and few readers will be in a position to make the comparison, but it is a sad reflection on the economics of book production. Nevertheless, it must be stressed that this is an excellent introduction to the craft, which has largely stood the test of time. It is strongly commended to a new generation of readers. Malcolm Airs, director of the Centre for the Historic Environment, Kellogg College, Oxford Wilton House,Wiltshire: the Little Ante-Room ceiling, c1650, with Lorenzo Sabbatini’s painting ‘The Birth ofVenus’ Castle Bromwich Hall,Warwickshire: detail of the Bridgeman monogram on the staircase ceiling, 1689, plasterer Edward Goudge
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