[68] Preliminary alternative design for Mausoleum

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Public buildings
  - London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Southwark for the Governors of Dulwich College, 1811-1813 (108)
    - Alternative designs for the west front and Mausoleum, April to July 1812 (13)

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Reference number

SM 65/4/46

Purpose

[68] Preliminary alternative design for Mausoleum

Aspect

Perspective of Mausoleum set in a landscape, and inset thumbnail plan and perspectives for Gallery

Scale

Inscribed

View of the Garden Front, 21 (three times), 40 x 20 (twice), Vestibule, View of the Principle Front and (pencil) Monthouse? Vol 5 plate 65

Signed and dated

(pencil) May 23 1812

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, sepia, rose madder genuine, olive green and burnt sienna washes, shaded, pricked for transfer on wove paper (595 x 480)

Hand

Robert Dennis Chantrell (1793-1872, pupil 1807-1814) or George Basevi (1794-1845, pupil 1810-1816) (both pupils recorded drawing views of the Mausoleum in the Day Book entry for 23 May 1812)

Notes

The perspectives show further designs for the decoration of the Mausoleum. SM 65/4/45 is more elaborate with sarcophagi crowning the three projecting porches, a single urn mounted on the top of the lantern and seated lions at the top corners of the lantern. There is also a feint pencil sketch in the top left hand corner, of what looks to be a section of the lantern. This drawing and SM volume 60/183 are very similar showing the Mausoleum with urns at the lantern corners and three Roman altars at the base. However there are slight variations. SM volume 60/183 has volutes at the corners of the canopied dome and this drawing has a pinnacle crowning the lantern. There is a feint pencil sketch on the margin of this drawinig of what seems to be a decorative detail for the mouldings.

At the bottom of this drawing are small perspectives and a plan for the complete gallery range, putting the Mausoleum into context. The previous drawings have made the Mausoleum appear detached from the Gallery.

This drawing is included in a vellum bound volume titled Miscellaneous / Drawings / of / Architectural Designs / Sir J. Soane / No. V.

Literature

F. Nevola, Soane's favourite subject: the story of Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2000, pp. 80 & 188

Level

Drawing

Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation

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).