Map Room Hallway
Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @45mm, f/8.0, 0.3 sec, ISO 400
A narrow window lined hallway leads from the Study to the Map Room. The window encasements are lined with various Mercer decoratory and architectural tiles Different styles are installed in each of the window frames. Below are a couple of individual tiles:
Study Ceiling Tiles
Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 30mm, f/11, 1.6 sec, ISO 200
Walking from the Dormer into the Study, I can feel the personality of Henry Mercer at work. Four desks are installed/placed around the room. Each one is positioned to capture the best light available for different times of the day. Artwork, artifacts, and books grace the walls. Tile mosaics adorn the ceiling, The two shown in this post represent the several others placed around the Study Ceiling.
Dormer Sink Wall (Delft and Mercer Architectural Tiles)
Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 43mm, f/11, ISO 200 (HDR)
Completing one loop from the Center Hall, the tour walks past the Floral Brocades shown in a prior post to start another loop in the Dormer. One wall in the Dormer is completely covered in tiles. Antique Delft tiles are encased by Mercer’s Architectural tiles. Two modern ceramic sculptures by Katia McGuirk are on temporary display.
Chinese Wall
Canon 5D MkIII, EF17-40mm f/4L @ 17mm, f/11.0, 0.5 sec, ISO 400
Going back down to the Central Hall from the Terrace Room, the tour passes through the Terrace Kitchen and then down a stairway decorated with Chinese Tiles. As Mercer was building Fonthill, he sent letters to his contacts world-wide to see if they could find and acquire foreign antique tiles. This is how these Chinese tiles were added to Mercer’s collection. They are “wedged in” a little alcove along the stairs leading down to the Central Hall. Fine art paintings surround this display including one of his Aunt Elizabeth Lawrence (EL).
Canon 5D MkIII, EF17-40mm f/4L @ 20mm, f/8.0, ISO 200 (HDR)
The East Room Bath is a short walk up a set of stairs from the East Room. It is a tight space decorated with a Spanish Brocade tile motif (I think?). Compare this with the previous post on the Smoking Room. To cover the bright light from the skylight through the deep shadows in the corner, I processed 3 images in HDR. My objective was to cover the dynamic range without making it look like a HDR image.
Out of curiosity, I asked the staff if some of the individual tiles had fallen off from within the circles. There is no record showing the wall with all the circles filled in. During installation, the artisans may have temporarily installed tiles, then moved them.
Canon 5D MkIII, EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 43mm, f/8.0, 3.2 sec, ISO 200
The tour now moves from the Center Hall up to the East Room. The main walls of the East Room are covered with fine artwork, not tiles. Architectural tiles on the built-in bureau, desk, and staircase cap. The ceilings are decorated with brocade tiles along the seams and several mosaics including the one in the above image.
Canon 5DMKIII, EF17-40mm @ 20mm, f/8.0, ISO 400 (HDR)
Taking a few more steps up the stairs one find this second Mosaic of Persian antique tiles. The origin dates for these are also unknown. Note how Mercer uses his own architectural tiles to create this mosaic to display the Persian collection.
The left side of this mosaic was in bright sunlight while the right side was in shadow. I used HDR processing and image merging to balance the shades to depict the colors that I saw.
Below are additional images of some individual tiles:
Canon 5D MkIII, EF17-40mm f/4L @ 17mm, f/16, 1.3 sec, ISO 400
After seeing the Fonthill worker dedication mural, I have walked down the stairs to the Breakfast Room, down more stairs to the Gallery, and up another set of stairs to the Center Hall. Rounding the stairway from the Gallery, this Persian tile mosaic is right in front of me. I asked the site administrator what happened to the tiles preceding the ” — th Century” title. I thought they may have damaged and taken off. The answer that he gave was that Mercer was uncertain when the tiles were actually made, so he left it blank. To design this display, Mercer used his own architectural tiles to frame the Persian Tiles. He used this technique throughout Fonthill to display his foreign tile collections.
Below are a couple of the Persian tiles that I caught my eye:
Canon 5DMkIII, EF17-40mm f/4L @ 23mm, f/8.0, 0.5 sec, ISO 200 (multiple images)
“Here see the names of the men who planned this house, directed its plan, executed its construction, adorned its walls, embellished its pavements, built with their labor and the horse who uplifted it with its strength.”
The design, planning, construction, and adornment of Fonthill was a tremendous feat. It is such, especially when considering when it was built (1908-1912) and with the tools available at the time. All the concrete was hand mixed one batch at a time. It was lifted up five plus stories with pulleys and ropes by Lucy, one strong horse. Every time I drive by or visit the site, I look back in awe of how this wonderful national treasure was built.
This dedication mural is hidden in a dark hallway between the servants quarters and the main house. It can only be seen walking down from the servants quarters. There is a window directly above the mural that makes getting a proper exposure extremely difficult. I took 25-30 images with different exposures to get one that I could work with. I first tried to use HDR processing. The resulting image showed multiple lens effect bright blobs which were totally unacceptable. I then fell back on traditional image blending. The base image was underexposed to keep the light from the window from washing out the top half of the mural. I then combined it with an additional three images by blending them together in Photoshop. I still am not happy with the results. I will go back and try again.
Lesson Learned: I had my flash with me. I have no idea why I did not try to use it to get the image that I was looking for. I had a lot to cover and may just have been in a hurry to get to my other target. I should have taken more time.
Canon 5DMkIII, EF 17-40mm f/4L @ 29mm, f/11, 13 sec, ISO 400
The Smoking Room is tucked up and above the Breakfast Room. I guess there is nothing better than a good cigar after breakfast. This mural is an example of a Spanish Brocade motif. It is installed in the back corner of the room and is normally in deep shadows which makes it difficult to see the details. This is the largest Spanish Brocade display in the castle. It is too bad that it is not on the main path of the Fonthill standard tours. Other examples of a Spanish Brocade are installed in a couple of other places in the castle that I plan to show in future posts.