Islamic Ceiling Design for Deepdene, Dorking, Surrey

This ceiling design was created for an English country house called Deepdene, in Surrey, by the Parisian partnership of Lachaise and Gourdet. The firm was known for designing elaborate interiors for wealthy clients such as Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon III. Deepdene had been remodeled in an Italianate style during the 1840s by the banker Henry Thomas Hope (1808-1862), and the 1875 decorating campaign came at the behest of his widow, Anne Adele, who inherited the famous Hope Diamond from her husband. Lachaise and Gourdet ordinarily worked in a Renaissance Revival style, so this design is unusual for them. Its bands of stylized flowers were based on a page of "Persian" ornament in Albert-Charles- Auguste Racinet's L'Ornement polychrome of 1869. Presumably, the design was intended for a space where exoticism would have been deemed appropriate, such as a boudoir or smoking room. Deepdene was demolished in 1967, so we cannot be certain if the ceiling was ever installed.