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Presentation drawings, more or less as executed, July 1787 (2)

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The entry for Ebdon in Howard Colvin's Biographical dictionary of British architects 1600-1840, 2008, shows that he worked for Henry Holland in the 1770s as did Soane. After travelling in Italy, Ebdon set up practice for himself and, when commissions were sparse, worked as occasional draughtsman to Soane. A.T.Bolton's The Works of Sir John Soane, F.R.S., F.S.A., R.A. (1753-1837), [1923], Appendix C has the following note on Ebdon -'Employed as a draughtsman 7 to 21 March, at Albion Place, Cambridge Scheme. 22-23 April, Great Scotland Yard. "2 large drawings left unfinished." Acc. 14 March, 1792 [a letter sent by Ebdon to Soane from 62 Titchfield Street]. June, 1793, writes saying he is going north. Memo. 3 March 1791, Albion Place. "At the rate of £200 per ann. the hours of business to be 9; if more, to be paid for, if less deducted." singed Christopher Ebdon. He was a pupil of James Paine. He appears also to have been employed previously in Nov., 1789 and July, 1790.' Ebdon's drawing style, as seen here, was competent but without flair. The drawings show the same design except that in the perspective, the portico has a Tivoli-style bucranium and garland frieze and a statue on the apex of the pediment that were not executed. Soane had intended stucco for the elevations but this was not carried out and the red brick was left bare. As was the convention, the several chimney stacks were omitted from the drawings.

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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.

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Contents of Presentation drawings, more or less as executed, July 1787 (2)