[5] Design for a monument, with a sarcophagus and scrolled acroterion, 1815

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Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Monuments and mausolea
  - Cricket St Thomas, Somerset: St Thomas's Church: monument to Admiral Hood, 1st Viscount Bridport for Lady Bridport, 1814-1816 (24)

Drawing. SM 63/6/55. ©Sir John Soane's Museum, London. Photo: Ardon Bar-Hama

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Reference number

SM 63/6/55

Purpose

[5] Design for a monument, with a sarcophagus and scrolled acroterion, 1815

Aspect

Elevation of a rectangular panel; (verso) rough pencil drawing of a sarcophagus-shaped monument, over a panel and surmounted by a scrolled acroterion

Scale

bar scale of 2 1/2 inches to 1 foot, approximately

Inscribed

(Bailey) Design for a Monument to Lord Bridport

Signed and dated

(Bailey) 1816 but datable to early 1815

Medium and dimensions

Pencil, pen and wash on wove paper (337 x 525)

Hand

attributed to Soane, and titles added later by George Bailey (Soane Museum curator, 1837-60), inscriptions on versos by Robert Baldwin (fl.1762-c.1804)

Notes

The recto of this drawiing is a preliminary design for a simple tablet surmounted by a scrolled acroterium, incorporating two paterae, a shell and palm leaves, placed in a frame formed by four (fluted?) architraves incised in the manner of pilasters. In the corner stops, ships' prows have been sketched in pencil. The outline of a pedimented backing slab has also been drawn in, in pencil.

The verso shows developing designs for a monument in the form of a sarcophagus.

In a letter dated 14 May 1815, Lady Bridport thanked Soane for his recent letter enclosing a proposed design, 'which as a drawing I greatly admire, but I am not certain that when executed for the church, it would quite suit my ideas; indeed in this undertaking I wish to be entirely satisfied' (Priv. Corr. XIII.H.28). The verso of this drawing show the design to which she refers. The sarcophagus is surmounted by a feature composed of two S-shaped scrolls, incorporating paterae and foliage and capped by a shell.

As in SM 63/6/51, the date inscribed by George Bailey on this drawing was added after it was completed, probably when Bailey served as Soane Museum curator from 1837 to 1860, and in these cases Bailey's dates are inaccurate.

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.

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