Decorative plasterwork was created by skilled craftsmen, and for over 400 years it has been an essential part of the interior decoration of the British country house. After discussing the part that patrons played in commissioning and financing these beautiful decorations, a useful chapter is devoted to materials and methods of work and here the author describes the ingredients of good plaster; he has studied the work of present-day English plasterers and Swiss stucco-restorers in order to establish precisely how the materials of plaster and stucco were composed and used. There are illustrations from Moxon's <i>Mechanick Exercises</i> (1703) of tools used in the earlier stages, and further descriptions, as armatures, molds and methods of work grew more sophisticated. The main aim is, however, to record chronologically the history of decorative plasterwork, with a special chapter devoted to that in Scotland. A very valuable feature of this work is a dictionary of over 300 plasterers and a chronological list of documented works and notes on firm attributions. The author contributes a considerable amount of new information, especially about the <i>stuccatori</i> who came from Switzerland and elsewhere to work in England in the first half of the 18th century, and also about plasterwork in churches, public buildings and country houses from Tudor to Regency times. -- AATA