VA-F25 Mitchells Presbyterian Church

Marker text: MITCHELLS PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

This Gothic Revival church, built in 1879, contains an elaborate example of <i>trompe-l'oeil</i> fresco painting done in 1888. Joseph Dominick Phillip Oddenino, an Italian immigrant artist, painted to deceived the eye into believing that his plaster murals of Gothic arches, Renaissance-styled cornices, and embellished Corinthian columns were three dimensional. Oddenino decorated the ceilings at Mitchells Church and Hebron Lutheran Church in Madison with geometric designs.

Department of Conservation and Historic Resources, 1985