[Illustration: 207. Room in a House in Whitehall Gardens, London, showing Flat Treatment of Ceiling (late 18th cent.).] Concurrently with the massive treatment just described, the eighteenth century saw a reversion to the old idea of treating the ceiling as one large flat surface and covering it with ornament in low relief. A specimen of this type is seen in the house in Whitehall Gardens (Fig. 207). The relief is very low, and the ornament is of the discursive rococo type, wanting in an easily intelligible _motif_. In equally low relief were the ceilings designed by the brothers Adam, but their forms were intelligible, and the modelling was full of delicacy and refinement. A characteristic example of their work is that from a house in Mansfield Street, London (Fig. 208). In a great number of houses, especially the ordinary unimportant house, the ceilings throughout the eighteenth century were quite plain. The rooms depended for their interest upon the panelling, the chimney-piece, and the well-moulded cornice, which not infrequently was carried along the ceiling beams, introduced in order to lessen the depth of the floor joists by shortening their bearings to 7 or 8 ft. An entirely different kind of ceiling, which had a vogue of some fifty years, must not be overlooked. It belongs perhaps less to the domain of architecture than to that of painting, namely the painted ceilings associated with the names of Verrio and Laguerre. Verrio was brought over to England by Charles II., and he died in 1707. Laguerre, whom he employed, and who carried on the style after Verrio’s death, lived till 1721. With him the interest ceased, although Sir James Thornhill went on painting ceilings for another dozen years. It is only in great houses or public buildings that this phase of decoration is to be found. The ceiling was regarded as a vast canvas, and certainly no previous painter had enjoyed so wide a field for the display of his conceptions. As a rule both Verrio and Laguerre succeeded in avoiding the weighting of their ceilings with too ponderous matter. Their favourite subjects were gods and goddesses seated upon clouds, and some very clever drawing and painting they produced. Their work cannot well be compared with that of masters working under the ordinary conditions of a movable canvas, controllable light, and a vertical position for manual execution. Were their masterpieces more easily studied than by looking upwards at a ceiling, they would probably be held in higher esteem. Some idea of the effect of this method of decoration may be gathered from Fig. 209, which gives part of a ceiling in Boughton House, attributed to Verrio. The dark cornice on the left is actually the soffit of the modelled plasterwork; everything else, including the shallow balustrade, is painted on the flat ceiling. [Illustration: 208. A Drawing-room in Mansfield Street, London. _R. & J. Adam, Architect._]