Detail of painted ceiling in east garden pavilion at Traquair House depicting the 'toilet of Venus'.

Description Detail of painted ceiling in east garden pavilion at Traquair House depicting the 'toilet of Venus'.

Date 11/10/1999

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 760072

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 59913 CN

Scope and Content Detail of painted ceiling in east garden pavilion, Traquair House, Scottish Borders This shows a painted roundel on the pavilion's ceiling. It depicts the 'toilet of Venus', and shows the goddess of love seated on a claw-footed chair by a Classical temple, fountain and lake. Two of her attendants style her hair, which she admires in a mirror held by a cherub. Other cherubs tie her sandal, fetch hairpins from a box, punt a gondola, prepare her chariot, feed the swans which will pull it, or float past playing the harp. The exterior of the pavilions feature harled walls and have wide sandstone margins around the door and at the wall-head. The ogee (double-curved) slated roofs are surmounted by ball finials. The pavilions would have been used for entertaining guests and for serving tea in. Traquair is the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland, with its origins in the 10th century. It was the site of a royal hunting lodge in the 1200s, but the house as seen today is based around a c.1512 tower-house with many later additions. The flanking service wings were built in 1695 to designs by architect James Smith (c.1645-1731), who also designed the wrought-iron screens round the courtyard in 1698. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/760072

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap