The Etruscan dressing room is located on the principal storey of the house, at the eastern end of the south range, and adjacent to the state bedchamber to the west.

Adam's first design for this ceiling (Adam volumes 11/210 and 11/211) does not make use of an Etruscan colour scheme. Clearly the concept of an Etruscan theme came later. Adam took inspiration for his Etruscan rooms from classical urns and vases - repeated in the wares of Josiah Wedgwood, as well as designs by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) within Diverse maniere d'ardornare i camini (1769), with their linearity, and strings of ornament. According to Stillman, Adam designed at least eight Etruscan rooms in the 1770s and 1780s, but the Etruscan dressing room at Osterley is the most complete survival of them all.

The ceiling in the Etruscan dressing room was executed in accordance with Adam volume 11/212 and survives in situ.

Edward Croft Murray has suggested that the painter of the ceiling, walls and chimney board in the Etruscan dressing room was Pietro Maria Borgnis (1743-1810). This is based on a travel account written by Mrs Lybee-Powys, who recounts that the housekeeper at Osterley had said that the walls were painted by 'Berners'. The decoration was painted on to sheets of paper which were pasted on to canvas and affixed to the walls and ceiling.

Group

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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