Preliminary designs for acroteria, by George Dance, February 1796 (3)

Explore Collections

You are here: CollectionsOnline / Preliminary designs for acroteria, by George Dance, February 1796 (3)

Browse

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 and Bartholomew Lane screen walls, 1794-1797 (66)

Use of images and copyright
Enlarge this Image

Print this image in A4 view

Reference number

SM (30) volume 42/187 (31) volume 42/188 (32) volume 42/189

Purpose

Preliminary designs for acroteria, by George Dance, February 1796 (3)

Aspect

30 Half-elevation of a scrolled acroterion with (pencil) scallop shell in the centre and small number diagram for the scroll's proportions and section 31 Half-elevation with instructions as to drawing-out and (verso) two unrelated rough elevations and plans including two quadrant plans, for twin crenellated gatehouses 32 Elevation of acroterion with segmental profile containing acanthus decoration in the tympanum and scrolls enclosing paterae showing (pencil) lines of radius; half elevation of an acroterion with triangular profile between paterae

Scale

(30) bar scale (31-32) to a scale

Inscribed

30 dimension of 4 : 4 ½ and calculations 31 (Soane) Draw A B passing through the Center of the / Circle at pleasure / make C B Radius & / Describe C D / Take the Point A at pleasure & describe F G cutting / C D - in G - / Continue the Line A G until it cuts the line H I & / describe the Curve G H, and lettered A to I

Signed and dated

(30) Feb. 18. 1796 (31-32) datable to February 1796

Hand

(30-32) Soane and George Dance (1741-1825)

Watermark

(31) Curtis & Sons 179 (sheet trimmed)

Notes

Jill Lever writes that Drawings 30 to 32 are three sheets of drawings for acroteria made by Dance presumably to assist Soane in his designs for the Lothbury wall. The inscriptions and the pencil additions appear to be made in Soane's hand. Soane notes in his diary on 21 February 1796 that he recently called on George Dance (1741-1825) specifically about the entrance design. The executed attic was more elaborate than Dance's designs, having twin double scrolls with florid paterae and anthemion and a large scallop shell in the centre. A trial sample can be seen near the top of the north side of the Monument Court of 13 Lincoln's Inn Fields, London (Sir John Soane's Museum). Dance's design, in drawing 32, was for a segmental pediment with a single scroll on each side or a triangular pediment with a circular antefix on each side.

In 1796 Dance was designing his greatest (but unexecuted) scheme which was for the Legal Qays and Custom House of the Port of London using a skyline element close to Soane's for the Lothbury screen wall ( see J.Lever, Catalogue of the drawings of George Dance the Younger (1741-1825) and of George Dance the Elder (1695-1768) from the collection of Sir John Soane’s Museum,
2003, catalogue [39].4,p. 350). Dance later used his pediment and scroll or antefix designs to crown internal doors at, for example, Stratton Park, 1803-07 (Lever, op.cit., [78].119) and they can also be found in Soane's later work, in particular, for monuments.

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).