Plasterwork is the art of decorating walls and ceilings with plaster, either moulded in place, run with templates or cast in moulds and fixed into position. It ranges from simple cornices and ceiling roses to elaborate ceilings, wall panels and overmantels with figures, foliage and classical ornament.
In Britain decorative plasterwork flourished in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, when ceilings were covered with geometric patterns, strapwork and pendants. Later seventeenth-century ceilings featured deep, naturalistic garlands and wreaths, and in the eighteenth century Italian stuccatori worked on Palladian and Baroque interiors with exuberant figures and scrolls. Robert Adam developed a delicate neoclassical style, with low-relief ornament sometimes picked out in pastel colours, and his designs were widely imitated. Victorian builders adopted mass-produced fibrous plaster, which allowed elaborate cornices and roses to be installed quickly and cheaply. Traditional lime plaster is flexible and breathable, so it suits historic buildings, and conservation of original plasterwork is now carefully regulated in listed buildings. Salvaged plaster ornaments, overdoors and brackets occasionally appear on the market, and specialist firms still produce traditional plasterwork for restoration.
