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  • image Image 1 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104
  • image Image 2 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104
  • image Image 3 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104
  • image Image 1 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104
  • image Image 2 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104
  • image Image 3 for SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104

Reference number

SM (19) volume 74/103a (10) volume 74/102a (21) volume 74/104

Purpose

Working drawings for ornamentation in the Rotunda, one dated 7 September 1795 (3)

Aspect

19 (Soane) Plan of part of the / Window and part-elevation; (verso) rough pencil details of fret pattern 20 Part-elevation showing variant design for decoration 21 Part-elevation of the Rotunda and details of decorative motifs

Scale

(19-21) bar scales

Inscribed

19 as above, Make D equal to half E F, D, E, F, Stone, (office hand) A, A. The width of this Ribbon / to be exactly the same as / that around the (underlined) Stone Arches, The Bank of England and dimensions given, (verso) Stone Fascia 20 The Bank of England, Design for ornamenting the "Rotunda" 21 (Bailey) Sketch of Design for Rotunda, The Bank of England

Signed and dated

  • (19) Lincolns Inn Fields Sepr 7th 1795 (21) 1795

Hand

Soane office and Soane

Notes

Drawings 19 to 21 show variants of the Greek key pattern and wavy line incised into the plaster around the windows and in the ribs of the dome. Erasure marks on drawing 20 show that ornamentation was initially intended in an arcade form around the room. Soane's colleagues took issue with the surface application of Soane's novel ornamentation, stating in 'The Modern Goth' (1796) his decorative style resembled 'scor'd loins of pork'.

Literature

A.T. Bolton, The Portrait of Sir John Soane, RA, London, 1927. pp. 62-65.

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).