The Sleeping Princess gesso panel by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh was completed in 1906 and is set into a recess above the fireplace in the Drawing Room of The Hill House.
Many years later in 1985 Agnes Blackie, who lived in the newly completed house, remembered watching Margaret Macdonald working on this panel, and described how she ” used a piping bag like you would if you were icing a cake, and then stuck things onto the plaster. It was very beautiful.”
It was this conversation, recorded by Alistair Moffat, that enlightened Jenny and myself as to the technique Margaret Macdonald used to create her gesso panels.
This led, after much research, experiment and practice, to us being able to start the actual physical work on the series of gesso panels in the Dining Room of the House for an Art Lover
Artworks - Dai & Jenny Vaughan