GREAT STAIRCASE
The Great Staircase at Fairfax House has been described by the historian Gervase Jackson-Stops as 'a minor architectural masterpiece of its age', and it is easy to see why.
Viscount Fairfax's architect John Carr was able here to create a large and dramatic space as the focus of the house, brilliantly illuminated by the superb Venetian window and enriched by the exquisite stuccowork of Giuseppe Cortese and the delicate wrought iron balustrading by the Leeds ironworker Maurice tobin. The richly decorated stucco ceiling above the staircase is Cortese's masterpiece, in which military trophies and figures with layers of symbolic and religious meaning are arranged in dynamic groups between the cornice and the central ceiling panel representing military architecture. The patriotic military associations of this decorative scheme were very appropriate in the early 1760s, as Britain emerged victorious from the Seven Years' War, while other emblems such as the putti with their torches and symbolic roses and hearts may have carried, in encoded form, a more personal religious meaning for the devoutly Catholic Fairfaxes.
Above the Venetian window is a cartouche bearing the Fairfax coat of arms (argent, three bars gemelles gules surmounted by a lion rampant sable crowned or). The family motto, JE LE FERAY DURANT MA VIE, is carved into the scroll below the cartouche, but because of the curvature of the scroll only the central words are visible. The motto translates as 'I will accomplish it in my lifetime'. On the walls above the stairs, flanking the window, are busts surrounded by stucco frames of drapery and palms. These busts were part of Viscount Fairfax's original decorative scheme but the originals had disappeared by the time of the restoration, so replacements were installed on the surviving plinths. William Shakespeare is on one side, with Isaac Newton on the other: thus art and science face each other across the stairwell.
MORE ABOUT THE GREAT STAIRCASE
The design of the ironwork, by Leeds ironsmith Maurice Tobin, with its figure of eight pattern and interlacing scrollwork is similar to that seen at Aske Hall near Richmond, Yorkshire.
Category: Architectural feature
Putti
The chubby little figure holds aloft in one hand a pendant on a ribbon. Within the pendant are seen a pair of hearts (symbols of sacred and profane love) and a rose which together constitute a metaphor for the Roman Catholic religion.Category: Architectural feature
Stucco Ceiling
Lord Fairfax will have worked closely with the stuccoist, Giuseppe Cortese, to create this complex iconographic decorative scheme.Category: Architectural feature
Stucco Dragon
The dragon, which is characteristically a negative and destructive symbol in western culture, here represents the forces of evil and tyranny being put to flight.
Category: Architectural feature
Venetian Window
The finely proportioned window has solid Siena marble columns and a stone balustrade below, and retains its original glazing bars.Category: Architectural feature
