The Pink Dining Room

The rococo style ornate ceiling was painted in 1955, but the design takes inspiration from the ruins of Palmyra in Syria. The design was copied from Robert Wood’s influential drawings of the ancient Roman city in ‘The Ruins of Palmyra’, published in 1753. Being one of the first systematic publications of ancient buildings, the drawings had great influence on neoclassical architecture, and not least of all Robert Adam, who most likely suggested the designs as a fashionably contemporary incorporation.