Staircase Hall, Fitzwilliam Museum
George Basevi
Completed by C. R. Cockerell and E. M. Barry
1870-75; ceiling restored 1999-2001
Cambridge
Other Views
Photograph, caption, and commentary by Jacqueline Banerjee
The hall of the Fitzwilliam Museum is strikingly ornate. G. W. Burnet and David G. Blissett say simply that Barry finished the "grand marble staircase and decoration" of the Museum. Nikolaus Pevsner writes that the design here was basically Basevi's, but that it was modified by both Cockerell and Barry — specifically, he says that Cockerell was responsible for the dome and the "plaster enrichment of the vaults, the decoration of the ceiling, and the use of granite columns instead of marble"; while Barry "added the lantern and the Italianate wall-niches" (211).The caryatids were sculpted by E. W. Wyon. Pevsner describes the end product as being "of a plan and character familiar from London clubs, in a typically High Victorian sombre colour scheme with black and pink marbles with much gold" (211). This does not sound particularly complimentary. However, the recent restoration has probably helped to relieve the sombreness.
Sources
Pevsner, Nikolaus. The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2nd ed. 1970.
Burnet, G. W., rev. David G. Blissett. "Barry, Edward Middleton (1830-1880)." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Viewed 24 July 2008.
Last modified 24 July 2008