Parts of the lime plaster 2nd floor ceiling from Sir Paul Pindar's house, English, 1580-1620.

3 sections of hand-modeled lime plaster ceiling with narrow rib design in a repeating pattern of circles and squares.

Given by the Great Eastern Railway Co., Liverpool Street Station, London EC. (RF 8367/1890).

The ceiling of this room consisted of a design executed in narrow ribs, indicating that the room was of lower status than the great chamber below it. The rib design is identical with that in the great chamber at the Charterhouse of c1570, where circles and small squares are linked by straight ribs and ogee curves that divide the circles in a manner reminiscent of medieval tracery. Small bosses and leaves cover many of the intersections and rosettes are dotted within the circles. The rest of the decoration within the fields consists of cast motifs, all with stylised floral or foliate features:
1. a square of oak leaves and acorns in the centre of the small squares;
2. a rectangular panel in each of the half-fields of the circles. A strapwork cartouche contains paired birds flanking a bunch of grapes, with four rosettes in the border;
3. the sprigs that branch from each corner of the small squares have grotesque beaked bird heads among foliage. This motif was still being used at Forty Hall, Enfield, c1630.

This ceiling came from the London house, built in 1600 for Sir Paul Pindar (1565? - 1650), a wealthy English merchant and the ambassador at Constantinople (now Istanbul) from 1611. His house was built outside the City walls in Bishopsgate, a relatively spacious and fashionable street. Like many London houses, it was much deeper than it was wide, with stables and a garden extending behind. The ground floor frontage was altered in suceeding centuries so only the upper two storeys were brought to the Museum (museum no. 846-1890). This plaster ceiling came from the second floor of the house. The house was pulled down in 1890 to make room for the enlargement of Liverpool Street railway station.

53H to J-1902