Inigo Jones

Inigo Jones transformed seventeenth-century British architecture and stage design through his work as an English architect and designer whose study of Italian classicism helped reshape architecture and stage design in seventeenth-century Britain. He worked for the royal court, designed masques, and served as Surveyor of the King's Works, producing buildings associated with proportion, symmetry, and classical orders. Designs for chimney glasses and chimney pieces of the time of Charles I is a nineteenth-century publication of designs attributed to Jones. Issued in London by John Weale in 1858 and 1859, the illustrated volume presents ornamental schemes for mirrors and fireplace surrounds connected with elite interiors of the Stuart period. The book is not a text written for contemporary readers by Jones himself; it is a later visual record that circulated his designs and reputation. Designs for chimney glasses and chimney pieces of the time of Charles I therefore belongs to the history of architectural documentation as well as to the reception of Jones's decorative work.