Londinium: The Mosaics
BY
W. R. LETHABY
An excerpt from
LONDINIUM: ARCHITECTURE AND THE CRAFTS
1923
Introduction
W. R. Lethaby was a British architect, designer, and architectural historian, known for his influential role in the Arts and Crafts movement. Lethaby began his career in architecture at the age of 16, working as an apprentice for Richard Norman Shaw, a prominent architect of the time. He later joined the firm of William Morris, the famous designer and socialist, where he worked on a number of important projects, including the design of Morris's own home, Kelmscott House.
Lethaby's own design work was heavily influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, which rejected the mass-produced goods of the Industrial Revolution in favor of traditional craftsmanship and the use of natural materials. He also had a strong interest in architectural history and theory, and was a professor of design at the Royal College of Art in London from 1899 until 1911.
Lethaby's writings on architecture and design were highly influential in his time, and continue to be studied and admired today. His most famous book, "Architecture, Mysticism and Myth," published in 1891, explored the symbolic and spiritual meanings of architecture throughout history. In it, he argued that architecture should be seen not just as a functional or aesthetic pursuit, but as a means of expressing and connecting with deeper truths about human nature and the universe.
Other important works by Lethaby include "The Architecture of the Renaissance in Italy," published in 1901, which examined the artistic and cultural context of Renaissance architecture, and "Medieval Art: From the Peace of the Church to the Eve of the Renaissance," published in 1912, which explored the development of art and architecture in the Middle Ages.
Londinium: The Mosaics
“Here is grandeur of form, dignity of character, and great breadth of treatment which reminds me of the best Greek schools. Were I a painter I should venture to enlarge upon the quality and distribution of colour.”
—Westmacott.
Some screen appears to be set up between us and our Roman works of art. Even the mosaics, which we might have supposed would have been interesting—even fascinating—seem to be regarded as mere museum objects and subjects for antiquarian tracts. So far as I know there is only one book which considers them as a whole (Morgan’s Romano-British Mosaics), and this is rather a full index than a discussion of their artistic qualities. An excellent chapter in Ward’s Roman Buildings should be mentioned. Even professional scholars apologise for them. Dr. Haverfield wrote: “They have the look of work imitated from patterns rather than of designs sketched by artists.”... “We admire them mainly, I think, because they are old and expensive. Few Romano-British mosaics are real works of art.”
Against such a judgment I will call three witnesses—Westmacott, the sculptor, as above, William Morris, the master pattern designer, and Mr. Alfred Powell. Morris says: “This splendid Roman scrollwork, though not very beautiful in itself, is the parent of very beautiful things. It is perhaps in the noble craft of mosaic that the foreshadowings of the new art are best seen. There is a sign in them of the coming wave of the great change which was to turn late Roman art, the last of the old, into Byzantine art, the first of the new.” Mr. Powell, who repaired the Orpheus Pavement at the Barton, Cirencester, and became thoroughly acquainted with the powerfully-drawn animals on it, says: “These creatures of the forest have been set out here in the tiny scraps of coloured stone with an ease and mastery that is remarkable. There is grace in their gesture that has seldom been reached in the art of even the highest period of the life of a nation.” The Woodchester Orpheus Pavement, which, judging from points of resemblance in design and details (a horned and bearded griffin, for instance), must have been by the same master, was a magnificent work, as, indeed, the fragment of its splendid border in the British Museum is enough to show.
Completer lists of London mosaics than I can attempt here have been given in other places (see Morgan’s Romano-British Mosaics, C. Roach Smith’s Roman London, and V.C.H.). Here and there all over the city at depths of from about 8 ft. to 20 ft. pavements have been found submerged by the rising levels of the ground. Scores have been noted, many must have been destroyed without a record, and doubtless some yet lie hidden to-day. In an old MS. Common-place Book I have is the following note: “On Wed., Aug. 15, 1733, some bricklayers digging foundations in Little St. Helen’s, Bishopsgate, discovered a Roman pavement, which by ye inscription [?] had been laid about 1700 years ago. It appeared a very beautiful prospect, being in mosaic working, the tiles not above an inch square.”
Fig. 88.
My purpose is to record a few fresh observations, to bring out by grouping and comparison some general inferences and indications of date, to evoke, if I could, some clear idea of the buildings to which such things belonged, and to prepare the way for a full study of these remarkable works.
The Bacchus Mosaic.—The central panel and fragments of borders of this mosaic are in the British Museum. A careful original drawing of the whole is at the Society of Antiquaries, and an admirable engraving by Fisher was published in 1804 (Fig. 88). It was found in 1803 under East India House, Leadenhall Street. The patterned part of the pavement occupied a square of about 11 ft., “the whole was environed by a margin consisting of coarse red tesseræ an inch square traced to the extent of 5½ ft. on the N.W. side—[note that it and the building it occupied was diagonal to the points of the compass]—but could not be followed further. The room could not have been less than 22 ft. square; but was in all probability considerably larger.”
Fig. 89.
The central panel of Bacchus reclining on a Tiger, at the Museum, has been restored and repolished. It may not now seem very attractive, but it is most competent in the balance of the forms and the strong, even fierce, drawing of the tiger; its bold eye, gleaming teeth, powerful paws, and the baggy skin of the legs are wonderfully truthful (Fig. 89). Notice that Bacchus carries a wine cup; this is the essential part of the design of the mosaic which doubtless was the floor of the central hall of an important house. The brighter coloured tesseræ are of coloured glass.
Fig. 90.
The Bacchante Mosaic.—One of the finest of the London mosaics was found under the old Excise Office, Broad Street. I have an original drawing of it by Fairholt, dated March 1, 1854 (Fig. 90). The best authorities are two large original coloured drawings, one by Archer in the British Museum and the other at the Society of Antiquaries. The central panel had a white ground and black border; the Nymph had reddish flesh and a light greenish scarf; the Panther seems to have been a grey-buff spotted black. There was much black and white in the pattern work, and some of the fillings were of black and white triangles.
Fig. 91.
It was described at the time of finding as having formed a square of 28 ft.; it was diagonally about north and south and 15 ft. below the surface. The central subject was “Ariadne or a Bacchante reclining on a panther.” In V.C.H. it was said to be “Europa on the Bull,” but the drawings agree with the former description. The composition is very similar to the Bacchus, and doubtless a wine cup was held by the Bacchante also. Notice that vases appear elsewhere in the design. The panel was about 2½ ft. square. This fine floor was taken to the Crystal Palace, where it seems to have disappeared. From its size and subject we may suppose that it was the floor of the central dining-hall of some big house. The drawing and balanced design of the central group is wonderfully skilful as space filling. Fig. 91 is based on original drawings of the floor at the Society of Antiquaries and the British Museum and a sketch in the Wollaston Collection at South Kensington. This mosaic should be compared with a floor found at Bignor, which is very similar in its details, and probably, I think, by the same artist. There the centre is occupied by Jove’s eagle and Ganymede, the cupbearer to the gods.
Vase-Panel Mosaic.—In his account of discoveries at Bucklersbury, Price describes a floor found in St. Mildred’s Court which must have been one of the finer kind. “A square enclosed a circle containing a vase in brown, red and white with the addition of bright green glass. Around the vase there appeared portions of a tree with foliage; also an object resembling an archway with embattled figures and other objects, the meaning of which is difficult to describe without an illustration. Around the whole were two simple bands of black tesseræ separating the circle from an elaborate scroll of foliage and flowers, analogous to that on one of the pavements at Bignor. At each corner was a flower showing eight petals of varied colours. From the centre of each sprang two branches, which united in a leaf in form like that within the scroll. The entire design is bordered by the guilloche in seven intertwining bands of black, red, brown and white tesseræ. A drawing of this interesting floor was in the possession of Mr. G. Plucknett.” The central panel must have been a formal landscape—a large wine krater backed by a tree and an arcade with figures on the parapet. In another place Price names it again amongst mosaics which had glass tesseræ; probably the tree was of green glass. This pavement also doubtless occupied a dining-hall. In an earlier account (London and Middlesex Archæol. Soc. Proceed. iii.) Price says: “When perfect it was of some extent, resembling those discovered at East India House and the Excise Office. In the centre was a vase similar to those at the Excise Office, and around it a scroll of foliage beautifully arranged. The fragments were packed in cases and sent to the workshops of Messrs. Cubitt.”
An Orpheus Mosaic (?).—Roach Smith reported the existence, below Paternoster Row, of what must have been an exceptionally fine pavement, which was broken up before any proper record of it could be made. This “superb pavement extended at least 40 ft.; towards the centre were compartments in which in variegated colours were birds and beasts surrounded by a rich guilloche border.” The wording suggests a square room, and the two former examples show that large square rooms existed in London. In the villa at Woodchester the chief central room was nearly 50 ft. square; the pavement had “a central circular compartment; within the border was a wide circular band containing representations of animals, inside was a smaller band containing birds; on the southern side was a figure of Orpheus.” The description of the London mosaic suggests that it, too, had for subject Orpheus charming the beasts. It was found about 1840 at a depth of 12 ft. In 1843 part of a mosaic floor, “with birds and beasts within a guilloche border,” was found at a depth of 12½ ft. below the offices of the Religious Tract Society at the corner of Cannon Row (V.C.H.). Is it not probable that this was another part of the pavement described by Roach Smith?
Inscribed Floor.—A mosaic pavement found in Pudding Lane as lately as 1886, and bearing an important inscription, was destroyed before any sufficient record of it was made. A printed version of the lettering was given in the Archæological Journal of the same year by Dr. Haverfield, with some comments. (Also see S.A. Proceedings, xiv. 6, and V.C.H.) In the collections of the Society of Antiquaries I find a sketch of it by Henry Hodge, a careful draughtsman of the time. This drawing is said to have been made “from a sketch by I. W. Jolly and fragments,” so that its strict accuracy is questionable. It appears that it was complete on the right but imperfect on the left-hand side. On the right some parts of the pattern covering the rest of the floor and a border are shown and some dimensions are given. It looks as if the panel was about 5 ft. across and was the centre of a strip 7 ft. or 8 ft. wide. The letters were about 3 in. high, black on a white ground; the last four seem to have been D. S. P. D.—de sua pecunia dedit—and this would imply that the mosaic belonged to a temple. The destruction of these mosaics is a sad witness to the nineteenth-century type of intelligence. Of all of them only the fragments of the Bacchus pavement are now known to exist. I should like to find out what became of the Bacchante pavement sent to the Crystal Palace, and whether the vase mosaic is still in packing cases at Messrs. Cubitt’s. I wonder, too, what became of Mr. G. Plucknett’s drawing, and wish I could get tidings of it. The great pavement in Paternoster Row seems to have been destroyed without even a drawing being made; while the sketch taken by Mr. Jolly of the inscribed floor has, so far as I know, been burnt. And this was the high age of university education!
Bucklersbury.—The most perfect of the existing mosaics is the complete and restored pavement with an apsidal end found in Bucklersbury. A good account of it while yet in its place is given in The Builder (1869): “It lies fresh and bright as when it was first put down.... It is to be hoped that some pains will be taken to trace the remaining walls of the building to which this speaking pavement belongs.” Here, again, although the apartment was not large and the ornamental mosaic was more than a central panel, there was a broad border of the coarse tesseræ. Besides having been a saving, the contrast of the plain red with the variegated central area seems to have been liked. The interlacing squares of this pavement resemble those of the Excise Office floor, and its central rose is like a panel in the same floor. An angle-filling is similar to a quarter of the central pattern filling the centre of the small India Office pavement, which, again, had interlacing squares. A single cross-like pattern filling a panel in the British Museum is again like that of the India House mosaic. Many such references could be carried much further, not only in regard to London pavements, but including the country ones also. I reach the conclusion that they are for the most part nearly of the same date, and that many were by the same artists.
Fenchurch Street.—A fragment of what must have been a fine floor was found in 1859 and is now in the British Museum. It is part of a panel which contained a vase and two birds. An illustration given in Price’s Bucklersbury shows that there was a margin of coarse tesseræ beyond, and that the panel must have been one of a series making up a handsome border. A fragment of a floor with a wide border divided into panels has lately been found at Colchester. Roach Smith described the former as “what would seem to have been an extensive pavement,” and he calls the bird a peacock. A good coloured drawing, in the Archer collection, of the fragment shows the bird’s neck a bright blue; the blue tesseræ were of glass. Fig. 92 is from Price, but I have dotted in on the top right-hand corner the line of a more modern building from Roach Smith’s illustration. This is one example of many cases in which more recent walls have been carried up from the Roman level and square with a Roman building. (A in fig., and compare Fig. 90.)
Fig. 92.
Fig. 93.
Fig. 94.
Fig. 95.
Birchin Lane, etc.—In 1785 a small piece was discovered here of “a fine tesselated pavement of very small bricks and stones; of this, only one corner appeared, which is composed of black, green, and white stones and brick, forming a beautiful border.” Another account says that “the tesseræ measured about one-quarter of an inch and were of various colours.” I am particular about this, for the bright colours were doubtless of glass. I find a contemporary drawing of this fragment in the Guildhall Library, from which it appears that there was a fair blue besides the colours mentioned. (Fig. 93; compare Fig. 92 and a border illustrated by Mr. Ward.) Outside it were big red “brick” tesseræ. There is in the Guildhall Museum a fragment of another mosaic found in Birchin Lane. It is part of a star-shaped all-over pattern of a well-known type (the Barton Cirencester, etc.). Fig. 94 A shows the fragment, and Fig. 95 is a diagram of the complete pattern. Another piece at the Guildhall has a sea-monster of small scale but most skilful execution. The place of finding is not noted, but it is probably a fragment discovered in Birchin Lane in 1857, described in V.C.H. as part of a pavement “representing a sea-horse.” Two other small pieces in the same museum are very similar in colour and quality, and may have come from the same source. One of these seems to have belonged to a pavement of square panels of knot-work framed in scroll bands (Fig. 94, B), or it may have been part of a panelled border similar to Fig. 92. Morsels of painted plaster were also found in Birchin Lane, where there must have been a good house.
Fig. 96.
A fragment of mosaic at the London Museum comes from another all-over star-pattern similar to that at the Guildhall, but this piece was next to the outer border of the pavement. This fragment is of particularly beautiful colouring—quite a purple floor. I give a sketch of the fragment in Fig. 96; it must have come next the border of a pattern like Fig. 95.
Threadneedle Street.—Several pieces of London mosaic are shown in the Roman corridor at the British Museum, but not very effectively. Two are exhibited as given by Mr. E. Moxhay, but it is not added that they were found in Threadneedle Street in 1841. One is part of a passage and the other is a square from the centre of a room. (See illustrations in Roach Smith’s Roman London, from which Fig. 97 is taken.) Another piece found at East India House, Leadenhall Street, is not set up rightly. The pattern is of two interlacing squares; the margin should not be parallel to either of these, but it should touch two of the points of the star form. (Fig. 98. See Sir W. Tite’s illustration in Archæologia; compare also the Bucklersbury pavement at the Guildhall.) This floor came from the same level as the Bacchus mosaic and not far away from its position; probably the small chamber to which it belonged was part of the building which contained the large square hall of the Bacchus mosaic.
FRAGMENT OF ROMAN TESSELLATED PAVEMENT DISCOVERED AT THE DEPTH OF 14 FEET UNDER THE FRENCH PROTESTANT CHURCH IN THREADNEEDLE STREET. APRIL 1841. Fig. 97.
The Bank.—A fourth piece in the Museum is a square panel from Lothbury. Allen describes it as “An ornamental centre, measuring 4 ft. each way, of an apartment 11 ft. square; beyond this were tiles of an inch square extending to the sides of the room.” It is another example of the plan of having a comparatively small central panel liberally framed in much plain red work. The device in the centre is a cruciform pattern. I can hardly think that from, say, 250 A.D. it would not have been recognised as a cross indeed. Compare the small cruciform centres of two squares of mosaic exhibited close by.
Fig. 98.
The floor mosaics at the British Museum are dispersed in two galleries and a staircase, and even so each one is badly presented. Fragments of the Bacchus floor are shown without any key-plan of the whole. Of five on the north wall of the Roman gallery, the place where only one was found is told. The interesting little Orpheus mosaic discovered at Withington is shown by three single fragments, although an excellent restored engraving was published in Archæologia when it was found. I wish space could be found for setting them in their due relation and completing the composition in outline. The surface requires careful cleaning and some repolishing. The floor from Thruxton on the north staircase has lost its centre since it was engraved. The engraving itself is shown in the gallery a hundred yards away, without any reference from one to the other. In this case, I think, the centre should be painted in on the plaster filling of the original.
These mosaics must have been drawn out on the levelled beds prepared to receive them by the master artist and filled in by him and his assistants. The preparation for such a floor is made clear in the description of a London mosaic found in 1785: “This pavement, as well as most of the rest, was laid in three distinct beds; the lowest very coarse, about 3 in. thick, and mixed with large pebbles; the second of fine mortar, very hard and reddish in colour, from having been mixed with powdered brick; this was about 1 in. in thickness, and upon it the bricks [tesseræ] were embedded in fine white cement” (Archæol., vol. viii.). The Bacchus pavement described before “was bedded on a layer of brickdust and lime of about an inch.” Powdered brick (tile) and lime made a strong cement which would finish perfectly smoothly and provide an inviting surface to draw and work upon.
Several mosaics while not quite plain were simpler in design and perhaps coarser in execution than those already described. A star-shaped fragment found in Bishopsgate Street, illustrated by Roach Smith, was of black and white tesseræ. It was probably the central panel of a floor, as Roach Smith said. A mosaic found at Lincoln had a similar star-shaped panel at the centre. About 1840 a tessellated pavement was found in Bishopsgate-Within “of black and white tesseræ in squares and diamonds” (V.C.H.). In Bush Lane “a pavement of white tesseræ” is recorded. On the site of the Guildhall “irregular cubes of dark-grey slate and white marble” were found (Journal B.A.A. xix.).
Another pavement, found in Lombard Street in 1785, was “composed of pieces of black and white stone one-third of an inch square, probably deposited in regular order” (Archæol. viii.). These black and white mosaics were doubtless like the counter-changed patterns found at Wroxeter, Silchester, etc. At the latter the Christian church had a square space for the altar paved in this way. Several years ago I drew a fragment of an identical design at Lincoln. This was probably a fourth-century fashion. The others may be a little earlier generally, but they overlapped into the Christian period.
Many floors have been found in London which were wholly of coarse tesseræ of red, or of a few simple colours accidentally distributed. One of these is described as of irregular tesseræ about 2 in. by 1½ in., mostly red, but some black and white. A room 17½ ft. by 14 ft., in Leadenhall Street, had coarse tesseræ red, black and white, 1¼ in. square, and a similar floor “of red bricks about an inch square with a few black ones and white stones” was found in Lombard Street. Some floors found at Silchester had circular and polygonal tiles used with mosaic cubes filling up the interspaces. At Bath, if I recollect aright, there are fragments of pleasant floors in which larger irregular pieces of marble are set here and there in a floor mainly of large red tesseræ.
At Silchester a polishing tool is said to have been found, being a lump of marble with an iron socket for the attachment of a handle (Middleton’s Rome).
A general comparison of the British mosaics brings out the resemblances between the members of certain groups. The similarity of the Cirencester and Woodchester Orpheus pavements has already been mentioned. The London floor found at the Excise Office was very like the mosaics at Bignor in both the patterns and figure work. The same pavements resemble others found at Silchester, and also the Cirencester and Woodchester mosaics. A pavement found at Stonesfield, near Woodstock, had a wreath of foliage springing from a head similar to that of Woodchester. It is obvious that elaborate works in isolated villas cannot have been home-made, and it is likely that this group at least was the work of craftsmen established in some central city. No centre is so likely as Londinium, a wealthy town, the most conveniently placed for the importation of materials. We think of these works as “decadent,” but really there was a new life in them. The centre of origin of the later type seems to have been Alexandria, and similar works to our own are found in Asia Minor, North Africa and Gaul. The use of glass in these mosaics is likely to have been an Alexandrian innovation. Price gives a list of five London mosaics in which glass was used, and I may add the fragment at Birchin Lane described above. Glass was also used at Cirencester and Woodchester: the purple tesseræ in the fine border of the latter in the British Museum must be glass.
Fig. 99.
Fig. 100.
Taking into consideration the great similarity of mosaics found in the East—those from Halicarnassus, for instance, now in the British Museum—to those found in the West, the character of the patterns, the mystical nature of some of the figure designs, and the swift ability of the workmanship, I am drawn to the conclusion that the craftsmen are likely to have been Greeks. Some confirmation of this is to be found in the fact noticed by Wright, that the Greek H sometimes appears for E in the few mosaic inscriptions which exist. Mosaics must, I think, have been works of the prosperous Constantinian age. The floor at Frampton had a XP monogram on it (Fig. 99); the Orpheus pavement at Horkstow, accepted as Christian by Cabrol, had crosses (Fig. 99); and a second one at Winterton has a red cross by one of the animals; the pavement at Thruxton, in the British Museum, has crosses set in the border in what seems to be a significant way (Fig. 100). The other details on this figure also have a Christian look; the top one is from Bignor, the bottom one from Frampton. Fig. 101 is from the Orpheus mosaic at Withington. If the Orpheus pavement at Frampton was Christian, the others are likely to have been so too. At least, they symbolise the Harmony of the Universe; they are not “mythological.” These pavements are evidence of the cosmopolitan nature of Romano-British culture.
Fig. 101.
Fig. 102.
Fig. 103.
Any idea of thought in decoration is difficult for us to apprehend. The records of the pavements which have been found in Britain deserve study from this point of view. The whole art of the time witnesses not only to the professional skill of artists, but to the thoughts and desires of the provincial Romans—and natives too, doubtless—who demanded such works. They speak of a time when the old beliefs had been for a large part allegorised and fitted into a sort of poetic cosmogony; the designs often dealt with the order of Nature. Many interesting details are to be found in these mosaics; Fig. 102 is a sundial which appears with a celestial sphere on the pavement at Bramdean. The fragment of inscription (Fig. 103) is from Thruxton. Large square mosaics which seem to have been the floors of central halls have been mentioned. In two cases, such floors found in Britain had sunk water basins at their centres. At Woodchester four columns were placed about the central space, and there was doubtless an opening in the roof above. Such a central hall would have been an Atrium, and this helps to explain the planning of Roman houses in Britain.
