The only surviving in-situ ceiling painting of Peter Paul Rubens is also one of the most famous from a golden age of painting. Two canvasses measure 28x20ft and two others 40x10ft. The ceiling was one of Charles Iââ¬â¢s last sights before he lost his head. The King was executed outside the Banqueting House, where the painting is located, on a scaffold in 1649. The Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, is the only remaining component of the Palace of Whitehall. The building is important in the history of English architecture as the first building to be completed in the neo-classical style. Begun in 1619, and designed by Inigo Jones in a style influenced by Palladio, the Banqueting House was completed in 1622 at a cost of ã15, 618, just 27 years before King Charles I of England was executed.
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