More than a spring clean: painting the house to welcome a king

Abstract

• Embedded in the roof of the Renaissance gallery at National Museum of Scotland are the painted rafters from a ceiling at Rossend Castle, Burntisland, Fife. These were probably commissioned by Sir Robert Melville of Murdochcairnie, first Lord Melville, and are thought to have been decorated in anticipation of a visit by James VI and I. Amongst around 70 motifs of animals, grotesques, flora and what appears to be a crocodile, there are 14 emblems, 12 of which derive from Paradin’s Devises heroïques (1557). One shows two hands holding a sword and a trowel. This paper considers the emblematic function of this elaborate decoration, the messages it was intended to communicate and to whom, locating it alongside other such house-prepping, including that by Sir George Bruce at Culross from 1611. It then explores what this painting might suggest of its commissioner’s experience within the circulation of knowledge, art and design in northern Europe, and their use of references that were intended to impress the king. Finally, it places Melville’s commission within the political and religious context of James’s return in 1617, and Scottish anxieties about their place in the new Union of the Crowns.