Plaster, Stucco and Stuccoes

Abstract

This paper explores the reasons why a traditional conservation plasterer, on the one hand, and an architectural historian, on the other, find it difficult to use the technical vocabulary available to convey precisely their meanings when discussing historic plasterwork. Plaster is now a generic term but in a conservation context it always has to be qualified to make clear whether lime or gypsum plaster is intended. Stucco is even more confusing because at different dates and in different countries it has meant a plaster mix, decorative plasterwork using that mix, low-relief decorative plasterwork, high-relief figurative plasterwork and renders, both internal and external. The history of these various usages will be explored and the question raised whether ‘stucco’ is a term that should now be consigned to the past.