Scottish Renaissance painted ceilings

A number of Scottish houses and castles built between 1540 and 1640 have painted ceilings. This is a distinctive national style, though there is common ground with similar work elsewhere, especially in France, Spain and Scandinavia. Most surviving examples are painted simply on the boards and joists forming the floor of the room above. Rooms in attic storeys were fully lined with thin pine boarding and painted. The fashion was superseded by decorative plasterwork.

The paint used employed protein size, chalk and pigments, including natural ochres, vermilion and orpiment often mixed with indigo to form vibrant greens. The pine timber was imported from Norway. The names of many painters have been found in contemporary records, but as yet no painter of any particular surviving ceiling has been identified through archival research. It appears that only the wealthiest of the merchant classes and aristocrats could afford this decoration, though the picture is unbalanced as more modest interiors do not survive.

The largest group of these ceilings have patterns of fruit and flowers, and may perhaps have evoked tapestry borders. Some ceilings in galleries incorporated vignettes with biblical or emblematic scenes. Others employ Renaissance grotesque ornament.

Surving examples can be seen in Edinburgh, at John Knox's House, Gladstone's Land, and the Tollbooth museum. Aberdour Castle, Fife has one of latest ceilings c1633, and Huntingtower Castle the earliest c1540, the ceilings at Crathes Castle with subjects including the Nine Worthies and Muses are among the most interesting. As at Crathes, beams at Traquair House carry proverbial and biblical admonitions. Provost Skene's House Aberdeen, St. Mary's Grandtully, and the Skelmorlie Aisle, Largs, are painted on thin lining boards. Culross Palace has a variety of painted interiors including emblems, geometric patterns and biblical scenes.

Other ceilings remain in private buildings, and a number of ceilings were salvaged and stored by Historic Scotland including two from Dysart. The National Museum of Scotland displays a ceiling from Rossend Castle, Burntisland, Fife. Stirling Smith Museum and Art Gallery has a ceiling from Robert Drummond of Carnock's house. A room from Alexander Seton's house at Pinkie is displayed at Edinburgh's Huntley House Museum. Painted beams from Midhope Castle were moved to Abbey Strand Edinburgh, and a ceiling from Prestongrange House is at Napier University though these last two are not regularly open to the public. Two rooms in the Missoni Hotel in Edinburgh still have painted ceilings from the original early seventeenth century tenement building. Painted ceilings concealed by later plasterwork continue to be discovered.

Bibliography

• Michael Apted, The painted ceilings of Scotland, HMS0, (1966)
• Michael Apted & Susan Hannabuss, Dictionary of Scottish Painters, SRS (1978)
• Michael Bath, Renaissance decoration in Scotland, NMS, (2002)
• Michael Bath, in Architectural Heritage, Edinburgh, 18, (2007), "Ben Jonson, William Fowler & the Pinkie Ceiling".
• Ailsa Murray, eConservation Magazine, 10, (2009) "Scottish Renaissance Timber Painted Ceilings".