Music Room of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton. Soffit decoration. Oil colours and gold leaf on plaster and wood. Re-creation of the original, destroyed by fire ↓

Details of a hand-painted wallpaper for Queen Victoria’s Bedroom at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton – a copy of the original Chinese wallpaper from this room, which was removed to Buckingham Palace c.1848 ↓

                       

Another Royal Pavilion hand-painted wallpaper, based on part-sets and fragments  of original Chinese papers in the Pavilion archives. King William IV Room ↓

                        

A series of chinoiserie pastiches based on works by Boucher, Leighton and others, early 18thC Chinese export paintings ↓

                               

                               

Two paintings in Chinese export style for the Royal Pavilion’s Yellow Bow Rooms ↓

                           

Yellow Bow Room with original Chinese export paintings, and three of the reproductions, in situ ↓

Dido and Aeneas mural for an Adam interior – the Front Parlour at Home House in London – to replace a lost 18thC original by Antonio Zucchi ↓

Two details of a continuous wall-mounted frieze decoration, and another landscape after Claude Lorrain ↓

     

The Nile at Luxor: mural for the Egyptology Gallery, Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro ↓

Still life paintings after van Os, van Huysum & Breughel ↓

         

After Boucher ↓

                               

Chinoiserie decoration on a polished lacquer ground ↓

 

Various chimneyboards and trompe l’oeil panels↓

                                      

                                                                                                                  

‘Pavilion’ mural in French scenic wallpaper style. Hotel Stanhope, Brussels ↓

After Rex Whistler ↓

             

Four Mughal-style schemes ↓

            

             

Chimneypiece roundel in the Front Parlour of Home House, London; a grisaille trophy; and a mural for the Stafford Hotel, London ↓

                                  

Paintings on silk, for cushion covers ↓

        

         

Two paintings incorporating representations of scenic wallpapers: the repair of a companion figure, and a paperhanger at work ↓

               

Sky ceiling for a London hotel,  a dragon in the Royal Pavilion’s Music Room (a replacement for a lost original), a verdaille roundel for the Pavilion’s Entrance Hall, and a detail from a Music Room soffit ↓

            

Falconry scene after Delamain, and peregrine falcon. A hunter (after Stubbs) ↓

        

Farmyard scene after John Herring ↓

Proposal for a grisaille mural; chinoiserie decoration on a gold-leaf ground (note: the black lacquer panels are period), and a trompe l’oeil ‘plantain-leaf’ ceiling (awaiting chandelier) for the Hotel Stanhope, Brussels ↓

                     

Trompe l’oeil drapery; simulated ashlar finish using Keim Granital paint ↓

             

Interior of a beach-hut, Hove ↓

Finishing touches to a painted imitation of brickwork at Kensington Palace. Copper-leafing a ceiling ↓

            

Paintings on glass for Royal Pavilion lanterns ↓

               

Painted cupboards ↓

                

One of eight ‘pagoda’ caps to chandeliers in the Music Room of the Royal Pavilion; before treatment, and details after re-gilding ↓

    

One of sixteen serpent & sunflower ornaments, repaired and gilded (and the head, in this instance, recarved). For the clerestory level of the Royal Pavilion’s Music Room ↓

The birds below are based on examples from 18th Century hand-painted Chinese export wallpapers. Such papers were often accompanied by a few extra pieces, painted with small birds, to be cut out and pasted onto the wallpaper to balance the composition ↓

                                                      

Conservation & restoration

(To be updated. In the meantime some projects are outlined briefly here.)

Restoration of a mural, dated 1841, recently discovered when layers of wallpaper were removed. The first photograph shows a detail before restoration. Attempts had been made at some time in the past to strip the mural using a blowtorch – hence the charred appearance of large areas of the painting.  The surface was further obscured by plaster residues. The second photograph shows the same part of the mural after cleaning, consolidation and retouching ↓

            

Water-damage to a late Victorian painted and gilded ceiling. The areas of staining were isolated to prevent their re-appearance, flaking paint was laid and consolidated, and the stained and lost areas of decoration were retouched. The first photograph shows typical damage before treatment; the second, the ceiling after conservation ↓

           

‘Plantain’ ceiling in the Banqueting Room, the Royal Pavilion. The ceiling was cleaned, flaking paint consolidated, lacunae retouched and the whole re-varnished ↓

The Saloon, the Royal Pavilion – flaking paint on an apse ceiling. The circled area shows slight traces of an earlier decoration. Analysis revealed this to be part of the Regency-era scheme for the room. The second photograph shows a microscope cross-section of the paint layers which helped in this identification. In the third picture over-paint is being removed to reveal the earlier (now tarnished) silver-leaf decoration. The room is currently being restored by the Pavilion’s resident conservation team ↓

    

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