8/8/2023 0 Comments Plaster chandelier medallion![]() ![]() Without a border,Rococo medallions looked like they were growing out of the ceiling, says John Ferguson, a former architectural historian in New Orleans. Rims were abandoned to mimic nature more convincingly. The series of romantic architectural styles that came into vogue mid-century, along with the Victorian mania for unfettered nature, transformed medallions into robust mounds of plasterwork depicting a tangle of vines, leaves, and flowers. In any period, the border often matched the cornice, and it’s not uncommon for a medallion to be ringed with beadwork or an egg-and-dart motif, for instance.Ĭompared with the rimmed discs of earlier periods, however, medallions in the Victorian era looked like they were on steroids. The motifs became noticeably more Greek in Greek Revival houses, with the flower often an anthemion surrounded by a border in a Greek key or acanthus leaf design. Like the veneered furniture of the period, medallions in Federal houses contained bellflowers, ribbons, and rosettes with radiating palmettes or other leaves. In the early 1800s, that typically meant classical emblems to suit Federal or Greek Revival houses. Downing, the importance of harmonizing dŽcor with the house style had been drummed into the heads of the American public so that it was widely understood that a ceiling medallion, like the furniture, should match (or at least not clash with) the architecture. ![]() Those designs deliberately mimicked the changing architectural fashions of American houses. ![]() Many of the same designs used for cast-iron ornament were adopted for plaster medallions, which tended to be most elaborate in public rooms such as parlors. Today’s ready-made medallions often replicate original designs or evoke them by using similar motifs. Then as now, plaster medallions were sold either ready-made (as one piece or in several parts) or were custom-made by an ornamental plasterer. Style and Substanceīecause plaster is what homeowners used then, it’s the appropriate material to use for an old house today. For that reason, ceiling medallions are a justifiable way of adorning rooms in an old house today even if it never had such plaster ornamentation before, provided that the same advice that guided homeowners more than a century ago is observed. Not all homeowners wanted or could afford medallions, of course, but their widespread use is a good indication that many people aspired to having them. First introduced into American houses in the 1700s, these ceiling centerpieces, whose designs often included leaves radiating from a central rosette, reached a pinnacle of popularity in the 1800s, when they added panache to the formal rooms of town and country houses alike, before petering out of favor in the 1930s.īut medallions weren’t just about ornamentation they were a kind of status symbol for the upper and middle classes, making a statement about the homeowner’s wealth and aesthetic sensibilities. (Photo: Paul Rocheleau)Īs a bull’s eye that draws your attention upward, nothing quite compares to the artistry of a plaster medallion. Befitting its four-story height, the Waverly Mansion in Columbus, Mississippi, features a grand medallion with a central rosette surrounded by concentric circles, framed by several octagons.
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