A state room or stateroom in a large European mansion is usually one of a suite of very grand rooms which were designed for use when entertaining royalty. The term was most widely used in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were the most lavishly decorated in the house and contained the finest works of art . State rooms were usually only found in the houses of the upper echelons of the aristocracy , those who were likely to entertain a head of state . They were generally to accommodate and entertain distinguished guests, especially a monarch and/or a royal consort , or other high-ranking aristocrats and state officials, hence the name. In their original form a set of state rooms made up a state apartment , which always included a bedroom.
14-694: Montagu House or Montague House may refer to: England [ edit ] Montagu House, Bloomsbury , former mansion that became first home of the British Museum, also known as Montague House , since demolished (a slang term for British Museum , on Great Russell Street, London, on site of former mansion) Montagu House, Portman Square , built for Elizabeth Montagu on Portman Square Montagu House, Whitehall , another London mansion Montagu House, Blackheath United States [ edit ] Henry Montague House , Kalamazoo, Michigan, listed on
28-534: A central block and two service blocks flanking a large courtyard and featured murals by the Italian artist Antonio Verrio . The French painter Jacques Rousseau also contributed wall paintings. In 1686, the house was destroyed by fire. The house was rebuilt to the designs of an otherwise little known Frenchman called Pouget. This Montagu House was by some margin the grandest private residence constructed in London in
42-543: The National Register of Historic Places Australia [ edit ] Monty House (Montague Grant House, born 1946), Western Australian politician See also [ edit ] Montacute House Montague (disambiguation) Montagu (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Montagu House . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
56-456: The greater the honour. There was usually an odd number of state rooms. At the centre of the facade , the largest and most lavish room (for example at Wilton House the famous Double Cube Room, or as seen at Blenheim Palace ), was a gathering place for the court of the important guest. Leading symmetrically from the grand centre room on either side were often one or two suites of smaller, but still very grand, state rooms, often in enfilade , for
70-524: The last two decades of the 17th century. The main façade was of seventeen bays, with a slightly projecting three bay centre and three bay ends, which abutted the service wings of the first mansion. The house was of two main storeys, plus basement and a prominent mansard roof with a dome over the centre. The planning was in the usual French form of the time, with state apartments leading from a central saloon. The interiors, decorated by French artists, were admired by Horace Walpole and were probably comparable to
84-426: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Montagu_House&oldid=971513957 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Montagu House, Bloomsbury Montagu House (sometimes spelled "Montague")
98-437: The new needs of the 18th and 19th centuries, or where funds were available to simply add on extra wings to meet the new requirements. Examples of such residences with surviving state suites which have never really changed their function include Chatsworth House and Boughton House . The term "state" continued to be used in the names of individual rooms in some post 1720 houses (e.g. state dining room; state bedroom), but by then
112-517: The sole use of the occupant of the final room at each end of the facade – the state bedroom . From the early 18th century, as aristocratic lifestyles slowly became less formal, there was a move on the one hand to increase the number of shared living rooms in a large house and to give them more specialised functions (music rooms and billiard rooms for example) and on the other hand to make bedroom suites more private. In houses from earlier than around 1720 which survived without major structural alteration,
126-424: The state rooms sometimes became a meaningless succession of drawing rooms and the original intention was lost. This is certainly true at Wilton House, Blenheim Palace , and Castle Howard . On the other hand, there were a few houses, and royal palaces , most of them exceptionally large, which were laid out in such a way that the state rooms could be left in their original form, while other rooms were converted to meet
140-705: The surviving state apartments at Boughton House in Northamptonshire , which were built for the same patron at the same time. In the early 18th century, Bloomsbury began to decline gently from a fashionable aristocratic district to a more middle-class enclave, and the 2nd Duke of Montagu abandoned his father's house to move to Whitehall. He built himself a more modest residence which was later replaced with an opulent mansion by his Victorian descendant, Walter Montagu Douglas Scott, 5th Duke of Buccleuch : see Montagu House, Whitehall . Montagu House in Bloomsbury
154-430: The year. The occupier of the house and his family actually lived in other apartments in the house. And unlike the main reception rooms of later houses, state apartments were not freely open to all the guests in the house. Admittance to them was a privilege, and the further one penetrated (there were many variations, but an apartment might include for example an anteroom ; withdrawing room; bedroom; dressing room; and closet)
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#1732765854818168-534: Was Bloomsbury's most fashionable era, and Montagu purchased a site which is now in the heart of London but which then backed onto open fields (the Long Fields ). His first house was designed by the English architect and scientist Robert Hooke , an architect of moderate ability whose style was influenced by French planning and Dutch detailing, and was built between 1675 and 1679. Admired by contemporaries, it had
182-661: Was a late 17th-century mansion in Great Russell Street in the Bloomsbury district of London , which became the first home of the British Museum . The first house on the site was destroyed by fire in 1686. The rebuilt house was sold to the British Museum in 1759, and demolished in the 1840s to make way for the present larger building. The house was actually built twice, both times for the same man, Ralph Montagu, 1st Duke of Montagu . The late 17th century
196-764: Was sold to the Trustees of the British Museum in 1759 and was the home of that institution until it was demolished in the 1840s to make way for larger premises. In fiction, the House appears in Neal Stephenson 's The Baroque Cycle as Ravenscar House with Daniel Waterhouse as the architect in place of Hooke. 51°31′10″N 0°07′37″W / 51.519319°N 0.126933°W / 51.519319; -0.126933 State apartments In Great Britain and Ireland in particular, state rooms in country houses were used occasionally, and only rarely all round
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