Scale
Scale not indicated, but approximately 50 feet to 1 inch
Inscribed
In pen and brown ink by an undentified 18th century-hand beneath centre of ruled frame, Greenwich Hospital
Signed and dated
- Undated, but datable 1694
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink over graphite under-drawing, with grey wash; brown ink ruled border line, with some staining spreading outwards along the lines as a result of the acidic action of the iron gall ink Laid paper; central vertical fold line 160 x 318
Hand
Wren Society, VI, pl. 21, top; Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1983, fig. 199
Watermark
No watermark
Notes
This is the latest known design in the sequence of drawings for the central domed scheme. In technique and detail it has much in common with the front elevation of the seven-block scheme [3/1]. Wren has now increased the number of arched windows in the hall and chapel ranges from five to nine, added attic windows in place of sunken panels, and dispensed with the applied orders on their transept elevations. The configuration of large and small arched windows on these transept ends is similar to the treatment of the end elevation of the hall range of the seven-block scheme [3/4]. Other notable changes are: (1) widening the end pavilions of the base blocks from about three-eighths the width of the end pavilion of the King Charles Building on [2/3] to over half that width; (2) changing the order of the quadrant colonnades from Corinthian (in All Souls, Geraghty 2007, no. 190) to Doric; (3) changing the end colums of the main portico from square to round; (4) modifying the profile of the dome lantern from convex to concave.The drawing was probably prepared for engraving as it adopts the engraver's convention of increasingly darker tones for recessed planes of the building (compare [3/4]). The brown-ink ruled frame probably postdates the drawing (see [3/1]), and may have been drawn by the writer of the inscription.
Literature
Wren Society, VI, pl. 21, top; Summerson, Architecture in Britain, 1983, fig. 199; Geraghty 2007, p. 128.
Level
Drawing
Digitisation of the Drawings Collection has been made possible through the generosity of the Leon Levy Foundation
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