Record drawings of the Court with colonnades on east and west sides and a triumphal arch motif to the south, one dated 1 June 1798 (3)

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Bank of England
  - Bank of England, City of London for the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, 1788-1834 (1352)
    - 1791-1801 Rebuilding of offices in the east wing and north-east extension (430)
      - Lothbury Court and surrounding offices, 1797-1801 (109)

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Reference number

SM (54) 12/3/11 (55) 12/3/16 (56) volume 60/26

Purpose

Record drawings of the Court with colonnades on east and west sides and a triumphal arch motif to the south, one dated 1 June 1798 (3)

Aspect

54 Perspective looking south of the Court with colonnades on east and west sides and, to the south, a triumphal arch motif with a semicircular-headed entrance between raised twin Corinthian columns and to either side semicircular-headed windows of a larger radius; a double staircase on a curving plan is to the east and a few descending steps are to the west, leading to two arched entrances through the wall supporting the columns 55 Perspective looking south east of the Court with colonnade on the east side, a triumphal arch motif to the south and a double staircase (without railing) as in drawing 54, with windows glazing in pencil 56 Perspective as in drawing 54 but without a railing between the columns on the east side, and with extra attic panel joining the antefixes which surmount the pilasters on the south side

Inscribed

54-56 (Bailey) Sketch of a Design for the "Lothbury Court", The Bank of England

Signed and dated

(54) June 1^st 1798 (56) (Bailey) 1800

Hand

Soane office

Watermark

(54-56) J Whatman 1794

Notes

Drawings 54 to 56 show the final composition for the Bullion Arch on the south side of Lothbury Court. Although ornamentation and proportions would be refined and embellished, this composition of columns and fenestration would remain. As opposed to the other variant designs, the raised columns each independently support an order and attic pilaster (as shown in drawings 3 to 6). The final version included figurative statues and other decoration, an addition to the attic, a wider entrance and narrower windows. These additions more closely allied the design with the fourth century Arch of Constantine. Designs for the gateway had always been variations on the triumphal arch, but this last iteration was most closely modelled on the Arch.

The entrance on Lothbury Street was a variation on the triumphal arch motif as well but instead of receiving more decoration as its design developed (as in Lothbury Court) the arch became more pared down. The statues and friezes were discarded, resulting in a lighter and more unified enclosure. Such reductions are perhaps owed to George Dance, with whom Soane met for advice (see SM 10/1/33, drawing 27 in 2:5).

Level

Drawing

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

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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.

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).