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Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » Piedmont » Culpeper County » Culpeper » Mitchell's Presbyterian Church

Mitchell's Presbyterian Church

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1879. 1892–1899, interior, Joseph Dominick Phillip Oddenino, decorative painter. VA 665 (Mitchell Rd.) (.2 mile east from Virginia 615), Mitchell's Station
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • Mitchell's Presbyterian Church (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)

Although from the exterior this recently restored, small wooden Gothic Revival structure seems tame, the interior is extraordinary. A complex series of trompe l'oeil frescoes transform it into a masonry Gothic/Renaissance structure with clustered and twisted columns, arches, cornices, coffered ceiling, quatrefoils, and other architectural details, seemingly straight from Italy. It remains the best surviving work of an Italian immigrant—sometimes termed the “hobo painter”—who was born in Chieri, Torino, Italy, in 1831 and died in Madison County in 1913.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Rapidan
Culpeper Downtown
Woodberry Forest School

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Mitchell's Presbyterian Church", [, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-PI8.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 125-125.

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