Plasterwork is one of the great achievements of artistic production in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland, largely due to the migration of Swiss-Italian craftsmen from Ticino. The CRAFTVALUE team has collaborated with several figures involved in plasterwork in contemporary craft practice, curatorship and conservation. In 2020 CRAFTVALUE hosted an international symposium which broadcast an interview with master plasterer George O’Malley, who detailed his apprenticeship with his father, and the subsequent course of his career. In 2023, George came to visit the Provost’s House in Trinity and gave his insights into the techniques used to create the extraordinary coffered ceiling of the saloon (see from structure to surface, below).

The exhibition also displays several ceilings from Russborough, digitally captured with photogrammetry, allowing the creation of orthographic views to better analyse their composition and form. In addition, a laser survey by TCD P. Grad. Dip. student Rebecca O’Reilly provided the raw material for several digital animations of the interiors.

Plaster was not just used in ceilings but in some cases was employed to create whole interiors, including columns, entablatures, and door pediments. The finest example of such work was at Clandon Park in Surrey, until its destruction by fire in 2015. The ruined fabric has revealed many of the working methods of plasterers of the 1730s, such as the manner in which they constructed the framework for columns and cornices, and the armature for figurative work. CRAFTVALUE and the National Trust at Clandon Park together led a joint UK-Ire research project in the digital humanities called 3D CRAFT, which brought together researchers in the digital humanities across Britain and Ireland to discuss new ways to investigate and showcase eighteenth-century architectural heritage.