The Print Room at Woodhall Park

Abstract

This article explores the exemplary surviving print room at Woodhall Park in Hertfordshire, created in 1782 for Sir Thomas Rumbold. A professional named “R. Parker” pasted more than 350 prints around the walls of this interior; the results were then carefully recorded in a catalogue and set of elevation diagrams. The first section, “Space”, analyses the print room within the broader context of the house, in order to connect exterior and interior, explore the relative qualities of “public” and “private” space, and consider neoclassical style as worked out in various media. The second, “Display”, unpacks the pasted scheme, looking at the relationship between “background” images and “starring” works, and that between iconography and pattern-making. The final part explores “Making”, analysing the processes by which prints were selected, trimmed, given paper borders, and arranged around the walls. This discussion considers both the degree to which the intermedial object of the reproductive print was translated into a trompe l’œil painting or sculpture in such schemes, and the creative work of collaging at play. The analysis in this article weaves together textual discussion with still and moving images, film, and animation. Combining these techniques, it aims to provide full documentation and analysis of the scheme, and to engage with embodied, mobile, and temporally determined viewing experience in both the house and the print room.