Record and presentation drawings, one dated 16 May 1799 (9)

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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)
      - Consols Transfer Office, 1797-1799 (75)

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Reference number

SM (67) volume 74/93 (68) volume 60/8 (69) volume 60/9 (70) volume 60/49 (71) volume 60/64 (72) volume 60/136 (73) volume 60/137 (74) volume 75/93 (75) 11/4/3

Purpose

Record and presentation drawings, one dated 16 May 1799 (9)

Aspect

67 (pencil) Section looking East, Section looking South and reflected-ceiling plan, as executed 68 Preparatory Sketch of a [sectional view looking south] Design for the 3p^r Cent Consols Transfer Office and (verso, pencil) rough sketches of plan and section of arches 69 Preparatory sketch for sectional view looking east 70 Sectional View of the £3per Cent Consols: Transfer Office looking south, more finished view of drawing 67 71 Sectional View of the £3p^r Cent Transfer Office, looking east, more finished view of drawing 68 72 Interior (Bailey) View of the Consols Transfer Office - (looking East.) 73 Interior (Bailey) View of the Consols Transfer Office (from the South West angle) 74 Interior perspective, from north-east angle 75 Interior perspective, a more finished version of drawing 73 with the addition of figures

Scale

(67) bar scale

Inscribed

67 as above, (Bailey) The Bank of England, (Bailey) Design for the Consols Transfer Office, (pencil) S, W, N, East 68 as above, Bank of England 69 Three per Cent Consols Transfer Office, Bank of England 70 as above, Bank Of England 717 as above 72-73 as above, (Bailey) The Bank of England 75 (verso, pencil) 8^thLecture 1820 / 6^th Lecture 1817 / 12^th Lecture / N^o 34

Signed and dated

(67-73, 75) datable to 1799 (74) May 16^th 1799

Hand

(67-73) Soane office (74) J. M. Gandy (1771-1843) (75) J. M. Gandy (1771-1843) and additions by A. van Assen

Notes

Drawing 75 is an exaggerated view of the Consols Transfer Office. It shows more elaborate decorative features such as winged figures in the spandrels of the central dome. Figures of investors and clerks are also shown to demonstrate a dramatic scale. These figures were added by Antonio van Assen (exhibited at the Royal Academy 1778-1804), an artist and engraver. The drawing was used as an illustration in Soane's sixth Royal Academy lecture from the first series discussing arches and ornamentation on 16 January 1812. However it seems that the drawing would have been initially prepared for exhibition at the Royal Academy because it is so finely drawn and the addition of figures by the other hand of van Assen suggests a high quality not suitable for a lecture. The drawing was most probably then de-selected for exhibition and later used as a lecture drawing. The view is a copy of drawing 74, which is dated 16 May 1799 and is by the same hand of Gandy, and as Soane did not begin his Royal Academy lectures until 1809 this further suggests that the drawing was drawn at an earlier date and was not intended as a lecture drawing.
The views also reveal the layout of desks and counters within the office. This distinguishes between the public and working areas.
There is also an interior perspective of the hall in the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A 3307.130). There is another view in the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects. (see J. Harris, J. Lever, M. Richardson (eds.), Great drawings from the Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, p. 68, ill. 29). This drawing is signed John Soane Arch^t 1799 and dated Sep^r 2 1800. It was probably drawn after the completion of the design in 1799 and for exhibition at the Royal Academy in 1800. Both these views show a slightly different design to the other presentation drawings with alternative stoves and the latter shows additional windows in the north wall.

Literature

(73) D. Dunster & F. Russel (eds), 'The Bank of England', in architectural monographs: John Soane, 1983, p. 61; (75) A. T. Bolton, The Works of Sir John Soane, 1924, p. 42; D. Dunster & F. Russel (eds), 'The Bank of England', in architectural monographs: John Soane, 1983, p. 72; E. Schumann-Bacia, John Soane and the Bank of England, 1991, p. 71;C. Woodward, Buildings in progress: Soane's views of construction, an exhibition catalogue for the Soane Gallery, 1995, p. 11; M. Richardson & M. Stevens (eds), John Soane architect: master of space and light, Royal Academy of Arts, 1999, pp. 237-239
(75) F. Sands, Fanciful Figures: people in architectural drawings, 2024, pp. 40-41

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).