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Sir Thomas Taylor became Earl of Bective in 1766, and at that time he apparently decided that his family home of Headfort House, in Co. Meath, Ireland, also need to increase its stature. Taylor at one point contemplated razing the structure, described by later commentators as "a long range of tasteless buildings," and rebuilding it along more fashionable lines to plans devised by Sir William Chambers in 1765 (also in the Center's collection). While Chambers's redesigned exterior was never executed, his rival Robert Adam was commissioned to decorate the interior in 1771, completing designs for the Hall, Staircase, Eating Parlor, Saloon, and Lady's room, including furniture and structural fittings. The Scottish-born Adam reputedly boasted the he "brought about in this country a revolution in the whole system of this useful and elegant art." After a Grand Tour of Italy and extended study of both actual Rome ruins and their interpretation by Giovanni Battista neoclassical style to London. Informed by an intense study of ancient roman and Renaissance architecture, he demonstrated his skill at combining the two, as in his decorative scheme for the Eating Parlor at Headfort House. The wood and Stucco decorations appropriate classical motifs such as the Three Graces, while the central painting of picturesque figures lounging beside the Pyramid of Gaius Cestius in Rome recalls fashionable eighteenth-century capricci. The design for the staircase, never executed as shown, displays Dam's talent for adapting his decorative style to different spaces.

Adam's revolution was one of both form a practice. He received instruction in Rome from the master French Academic architect and draftsman Charles-Louis Clérisseau, and the practice he established in London around 1760 in partnership with his brother James is an early example of modern architecture and design firms. Serendipitously, Adam's rise to prominence accompanied an increase in country-house building in Great Britain perhaps fueled by new-found commercial wealth. His beautiful and elaborate drawings, often with watercolor washes, were a persuasive way to communicate his designs to potential patrons.

Morna O'Neill

Wilcox, Forrester, O'Neil, Sloan. The Line of Beauty: British Drawings and Watercolors of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 2001. pg. 143 cat. no. 121