The Rococo style probably first came to the attention of the English public in the early 1730s when Paul de Lamerie, the leading London Huguenot goldsmith, produced asymmetrical decoration in the latest Parisian fashion on his silver wares. Not long afterwards the Dublin goldsmith John Hamilton followed suit with similar designs, and so introduced the new style to Ireland.
Le genre pittoresque, as the Rococo style was known to contemporaries, was largely the creation of Nicolas Pineau (1684-1754), an ornamental carver, and Juste-Aurle Meissonnier (1695-1750), who was appointed royal goldsmith to Louis XV in 1724. The new style, in marked contrast to the classicism of Louis XIV and the Regence, was characterized by asymmetry and the use of rocaille ornament, an organic rock-like substance, as its leitmotif. Charles Nicolas Cochin, a contemporary French critic, who disliked the Rococo, exclaimed that: "Meissonnier began to destroy all straight lines that were of the old usage . . . he invented contrasts, that is to say he banished symmetry."
The other creator of the Rococo, Nicolas Pineau, whose designs were less flamboyant than those of Meissonnier, was far more influential in the development of the French Rococo interior, and his engraved designs were known much further afield. For example, Lord Chesterfield, after his return from Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, had the interior of his newly-built London mansion decked out in the Parisian manner based on designs by Pineau.
It was in Germany, however, especially in Bavaria, that the Rococo flourished as it never did in France. Its full potential was realised by the stuccodores who were little used in France, where interiors were mostly decorated with painted and gilded panels of carved oak (boiseries).
Although, as we have seen, the Rococo had reached Ireland by the mid-1730s, it was not until the end of the 1740s that we saw its influence on interior decoration. The decisive move was made by the German-born architect Richard Castle (c.16901751), who began building a new residence in Dublin for the Earl of Kildare in 1745. Drawings by Castle, now in the Irish Architectural Archive, for some of the interiors of Kildare House (now Leinster House) incorporated bold rocaille ornament. These planned interiors, whether they were ever executed, have not, apparently, survived.
A few years later, in 1755, Dr Bartholomew Mosse, who built the famous Lying-in-Hospital (now the Rotunda) brought over to Dublin Barthelemij Cramillion, a German-trained stuccodore, to decorate the hospital chapel. The Chapel, together with a number of ceilings executed by Cramillion in the houses of friends of Dr Mosse, constitute the finest examples of Rococo stuccowork in Ireland or Great Britain. Following Cramillion's example, the native stuccodores quickly assimilated the Rococo style, which became hugely popular in town and county. Indeed, when the German traveller Karl Gottfried Kuttneru with diaresis was dropped in transmission visited Ireland in 1785, he was overwhelmed by these interiors. This sense of surprise at the richness of Irish interiors, often at odds with their plain exteriors, has been commented on by visitors over the centuries. In the 20th century, Margaret Jourdain, Mario Praz and Sacheverell Sitwell have each written eloquently on the subject. The same enchantment has caused Timothy Mowl and Brian Earnshaw to write their book on Rococo. Unfortunately, much of the text and the illustrations have nothing to do with the Rococo, despite the title; we are treated instead to chapters on such irrevelant subjects as the Gothic Revival.
The authors appear to dismiss an academic approach to the subject, with the result that the history of the Rococo in England and Ireland is treated in a very confusing and slipshod manner. Had they bothered to consult Carlo PalumboFossati's well-researched book on the Lafranchini, they would not have constantly mis-spelled the name of the stuccodores (who, in any case, did not work in the Rococo style). If only the authors had read Anthony Blunt's Some Uses and Misuses of the terms Baroque and Rococo, we might have been spared much inaccuracy.
Yet the authors' enthusiasm for Irish stuccowork is infectious. The book deserves to be read by all who care about the cultural wealth of the country, and might persuade the planning authorities to stop the sort of vandalism that took place a few years ago by developers in Temple Bar, who, despite protests in the press, destroyed the only remaining Rococo ceiling in "Dublin's Cultural Quarter".
Joseph McDonnell is an art historian. His most recent publication is 500 Years of the Art of the Book in Ireland.