[47] Design for the altar rail and enclosure for the altarpiece at St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, 10 October 1827

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Churches and chapels
  - London: Church of St John on Bethnal Green, London 1824-28 (66)
    - Designs for the altarpiece, St John's, Bethnal Green, London, September-October 1827 [6]

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Reference number

SM 47/5/34

Purpose

[47] Design for the altar rail and enclosure for the altarpiece at St John’s, Bethnal Green, London, 10 October 1827

Aspect

Plan, elevation and detail of the enclosure for the communion table and the altar rail. The plan has a half-square enclosure and communion table set in front of the altarpiece. Above is an elevation of one side of the enclosure with a two-stepped approach showing the altar rails. Above is a detail of the altar rail with a rosette motif within diamond-shaped rails.

Scale

bar scale of 5 inches to 10 feet

Inscribed

Bethnal Green Chapel / Plan of the Enclosure round Communion Table - No2. / Rob^t Streather / 1¹/₄ yellow clean deal Floor, the Joints ploughed and tongued. / (in pencil) 3’-0” to centre of / Capping / Communion Table. Deal / 6’9” by 3’. 0” / bath Stone / Wrought Iron Railing / Wainscot Capping Full Size / One of the Wrought Iron panels / Full Size. and measurements given

Signed and dated

10 October 1827
Lincolns Inn Fields / 10^th Octr.1827.

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen, wash, coloured washes of Cerulean blue, blue, brown, pink and yellow, pricked for transfer, on wove paper (750 x 544)

Hand

Probably Stephen Burchell (1806 - c.1843), draughtsman
The Soane Office Day Book for 10 October records Burchell working on designs for the altarpiece at St John's, Bethnal Green

Verso

Faded design for a plan an unknown subject, consisting of recesses with two engaged columns, one on the side, and another on a rounded corner

Notes

The rosette within a diamond shaped rail framed by straight rails either side is a Soane motif used on handrails for staircase as in his own residences, for example, number 14 Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Level

Drawing

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.

Browse (via the vertical menu to the left) and search results for Drawings include a mixture of Concise catalogue records – drawn from an outline list of the collection – and fuller records where drawings have been catalogued in more detail (an ongoing process).