Osterley Park House, Tapestry Room. Painting

Osterley is the great country house built for the Child family, the Earls of Jersey, just outside London. Robert Adam, the countrys leading Neo-Classical architect, designed and modified the house in the 1760s. I first visited when I was a boy, it now belongs to the National Trust and is open to the public. Amongst my favorite rooms is the tapestry room. The tapestries were woven in France at the Beauvais factory outside Paris following designs by Francois Boucher and this is one of five rooms that Adam decorated in this way. Others are at newby Hall in Yorkshire, and Croome Court which is now in the Metroplitan museum in New York. Adam designed the ceiling, carpet and furniture, door surrounds and mirrors. The measurements were sent to France and the finished tapestries were sent to England years later in the diplomatic bag in order to avoid import duty. The rooms were seldom used as they were so sumptuous and precious. Because of this they were kept with the shutters closed and are remarkably un-faded. I love the wonderful pink colour, which is often associated with Madame de Pompadour, who was the mistress of the French King Louis XV. I wanted to paint a view of the room that captured it's character and richness. Often photographs of rooms are a bit disappointing, because the light is not quite right, or the composition is awkward. As a painter I can edit and manipulate the view and create the effect that I see, convey the atmosphere. From a distance my work looks almost photographic, but as you get closer you will see that all the detail is merely implied, the painting is an illusion of complexity. In this it imitates what you would actually see if you visited the room. It is easy to imagine the lives of the people who built this room, how comfortable and privileged, how luxurious it must have been.