NICHE (from the Italian niechia, signifying also a nook), a small recess, or concavity in the face of a wall for the purpose of containing a statue. The Greeks rarely employed statues as external decorations to their edifices, sculpture being so applied by them only as friezes, or within pediments, and they did not therefore require niches. In Roman archi tecture, on the contrary, niches are of very frequent occurrence, and often enter very largely into a design as principal features in the composition. Niches are usually semicircular in plan, and rouudleaded, is, covered by the quarter of a hollow sphere, owing to which the shadow within the concavity produces a beautiful curve. They are, however, occasionally made square in plan, in which case they are square-headed ; but square-headed uiches are sometimes made circular in plan, though round-headed ones are never square. Niches exhibit still greater diversity in the modes of decorating them ; and they are sometimes left quite plain, and in this country, oftener than not, quite empty also ; although a niche without a statue, vase, or some piece of sculpture in it, is a very questionable feature, suggesting to the spectator the absence of the object which it is intended to receive.
When niches are decorated they are usually placed within a square headed panel, having architraves and other dressings like those of windows, and therefore admit of as much variety of design as windoWs themselves. Many architects have given them columns, and thus con verted them into small tabernacles (as in the upper order of the side elevations of St. Paul's), or have otherwise bestowed so much enrich ment upon them that the statues within them are almost lost.
In Romanesque and Pointed Gothic architecture, niches are largely employed, and rendered a highly ornamental feature. In our own couutry we find them extensively used through every period, but vary ing in character in each. When employed in the Norman period they are mere shallow recesses, and but slightly ornamented. Sometimes'
they occur in a series under intersecting arches. In the First Pointed style they are more frequent, more deeply recessed, more ornamented, the sides have handsome mouldings, the beads have trefoil or cinque foil cusps, and frequently they have a flat or projecting canopy. [CANOPY.] Sometimes the figures are set on low pedestals : good examples occur at Salisbury, Peterborough, and Wells Cathedrals, and of the transition to the Second Pointed period at Beverley Minster. In the Second Pointed, or Decorated style, still more regard is paid to tbe niches, which are now much more varied in character, and often highly elaborated. The top is frequently carved to imitate regular vaulting, the canopies are very various in form and decoration, but usually pedimental or ogee, projecting, and often ornamented with crockets, pinnacles, and a fully developed finial. Niches in this style often occur in buttresses, on the sides of doorways as at Rochester Cathedral, and ou each side of the east window. The figures are usually placed on richly carved brackets. Good examples occur at Wells, Lichfield, Ely, and Rochester Cathedrals, and York and Beverley Minsters. In the Third Pointed, or Perpendicular style, niches are even more abundant, and in ornament more exuberant, the canopies often running upwards into small and pinnacles, -erockets, and finials being very profusely employed. The top is often groined, and has sculptured bosses. They may be seen in all important buildiugs of this style, but it will perhaps be enough to refer to Henry VII.'s chapel, and the very numerous and elaborate modern examples, all imitated from the best old examples, in the New Palace, Westminster.
The sedilias, piscinas, stoups, and other recessed features of Gothic ecclesiastical buildings, are usually so treated as to be in fact niches, though having their proper names they are not so classed.