Boughton in Northamptonshire is an improbable dream of a house. It is an essay in restrained French Classicism that was gently set into the English countryside in the late seventeenth century, encasing an older building (Fig.1). The house was chiefly the creation of the francophile Ralph, 1st Duke of Montagu (1638–1709), who served as Charles II’s ambassador to the court of Louis XIV. Its most splendid internal feature is the so-called Grand Apartment, which consists of a parade of impressive state rooms. Their ceilings were painted in oil on plaster by the artist Louis Chéron (1660–1725; Fig.5) and are the artist’s most extensive extant decorative commission.[1] Over time his paintings became discoloured and darkened, as well as disfigured by small losses and later attempts at repainting, to a degree which meant that visitors often ignored them or misinterpreted their subject-matter. A major programme of conservation is now underway to transform the legibility of Chéron’s work and allow a new assessment of his achievement and abilities as a colourist. It is one of the largest and most ambitious privately steered campaigns of conservation of paintings being undertaken anywhere in Europe. Nine ceilings are being conserved, eight of which are considered to be the work of Chéron and his assistants. 

Chéron was born in Paris and was trained first by his father, Henri, who was a miniaturist and engraver. He later become renowned for his history paintings and book illustrations, having studied at the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in Paris, where he took particular inspiration from his training with Charles le Brun (1619–90). The artist’s researches in Italy in the 1670s and 1680s were financed by his sister, the accomplished painter, poet and musician Elizabeth Sophie Chéron (1648–1711) and informed his later practice; visual echoes of the work of Raphael, Correggio and Annibale Carracci can all be found on the Boughton ceilings. They provided a virtual Italian Grand Tour for the 1st duke of Montagu, whose actual travels took him only as far as the south of France. This was not, however, their chief purpose – initially, work on the scheme proceeded at a rapid pace in order to create an impressive setting for the reception of King William III, who arrived at Boughton in October 1695. However, little of the programme was probably completed by that point and work on its various elements, including the vast Great Hall, the ceiling of which focuses on Hercules and Hebe, extended in phases to 1707. 

As a Huguenot, Chéron left France in the wake of the persecution of Protestants, and he may well have been encouraged to settle in London by Ralph Montagu, who distributed extensive patronage in relation to his own homes and the royal household (he was Master of the Great Wardrobe). Chéron also worked at Montagu House in Bloomsbury – the original home of the British Museum – and a sense of what its grand interiors might have originally looked like can only now be gleaned from the Boughton state rooms, along with some nineteenth-century watercolours that also evoke them. 

The Chéron ceilings offer visions of heavenly realms, where mythic and allegorical figures are choreographed across the sky, flowers are scattered and animals and luxurious props animate the scenography. The entire sequence of their programme cannot be decoded here; however, one example may stand to illustrate their iconography and interest. The third state room or state bedroom features Vulcan catching Mars and Venus in his nets – a suitably sensual theme for such a space. The painting depicts the god and goddess on a divan, almost tumbling into the viewer’s world, their infidelity revealed. The conserved ceiling (Figs.2 and 4) is notable for its brilliant, insistent colours, which now chime with the splendid crimson damask hangings of the state bed and tapestries located below. The painted illusionistic parapet enhances the sense of space and drama. 

The oil sketch for this ceiling (Fig.3), which was presumably shown to the patron for approval, is in the Tate’s collection, and was itself conserved in 2005, as well as being subjected to detailed technical analysis.[2] There are a number of variations between the sketch and the final work – the Venus on the ceiling, for example, engages more directly with the viewer below – suggesting that the composition must have evolved further, probably becoming subject to discussion and being developed with drawings. Six oil sketches related to the Boughton ceilings are recorded as being in the artist’s possession at the time of his death.[3] It seems highly likely that Chéron carefully studied literary sources when working on such proposals; from c.1715 he illustrated printed editions of Classical texts. 

The conservation of the ceilings has been undertaken by a team from the Perry Lithgow Partnership on behalf of the Buccleuch Living Heritage Trust (BLHT), who, led by the Duke of Buccleuch, steer the custodianship of Boughton and its great collections. The project has been carried out over recent years during the winter months and is due to be completed at the end of 2025, the three hundredth anniversary of Chéron death. His work is now being given back its rightful status as a vibrant and distinctly continental vision of the heavens suspended above the house’s fabled tapestries, carpets, paintings, furniture and many other treasures.

[1] T. Murdoch: ‘The decorative paintings of Louis Chéron’ in idem, ed.: Boughton House, The English Versailles, London 1992; and reviewed by I. Gow in this Magazine, 137 (1995), p.398. 

[2] Details about the conservation project are available at www.tate.org.uk/aboutus/ projects/tudor-stuart-technical-research/entries/vulcan-catching-mars-andvenus- in-his-net-c1695-by-louis-ch%C3%A9ron, accessed 13th March 2025. 

[3] F. Russell: ‘Louis Chéron; a sale catalogue’, THE BURLINGTON MAGAZINE 130 (1988), pp.464–67; see also the exhibition review of Louis Chéron (Paris 1655–Londres 1725): L’ambition du dessin parfait by T. Murdoch in this Magazine, 164 (2022), pp.702–04.