It was the interior of these mansions, however, that gave them their chief claim to elegance. The stairways, the floors, the mantles were of the finest wood and were finished in the most costly manner. In the beautiful halls of Rosewell richly carved mahogany wainscotings and capitals abounded.[114] At Monticello the two main halls were given an air of richness and beauty by the curiously designed mantles, the hard wood floors and the stately windows and doors. John Bernard, who thought the Virginia mansions lacking in architectural beauty, stated that internally they were palaces. The furniture was in keeping with its surroundings. It was frequently of hard wood, beautifully decorated with hand work. All the furniture, except that of the plainest design, was imported from England, and could be bought by the planters at a price very little above that paid in London. Costly chairs, tables, book-cases, bedsteads, etc., were found in the homes of all well-to-do men. The Virginians seem to have had at this period a passion for silver ware, and in their homes were found a great variety of articles made of this metal. There were silver candle-sticks, silver snuffers, silver decanters, silver snuff-boxes, silver basins. The dining table on festive occasions groaned with the weight of silver utensils, for goblets, pitchers, plates, spoons of silver were then brought forth to do honor to the guests. The punch might be served in silver bowls and dished out with silver ladles into silver cups; for the fruit might be silver plates, for the tea silver pots. The silver plate at Westover was mortgaged by William Byrd III to the value of £662. Among other articles we find that ten candle-sticks brought £70, one snuffer-stand £5, two large punch bowls £30, a punch strainer £1.10, and a punch ladle £1.[115] Robert Carter, of Nomini Hall, was very fond of fine silver. In 1774 he invested about £30 in a pair of fashionable goblets, a pair of sauce-cups and a pair of decanter holders.[116] In many homes were collections of pictures of great merit and value. In the spacious halls of the mansions were hung the portraits of ancestors that were regarded with reverential pride. The Westover collection was perhaps the most valuable in the colony, containing several dozen pictures, among them one by Titian, one by Rubens, and portraits of several lords of England.[117] Mount Airy, the beautiful home of the Tayloe family, contained many paintings, which were well executed and set in elegant frames.[118] Although most of the pictures in the homes of the aristocracy were imported from England, some were painted in Virginia, for at times artists of talent came to the colony. In 1735 a man named Bridges painted William Byrd's children. It is thought also that it was he that painted the portrait of Governor Spotswood and possibly several pictures of the Page family.[119]