Explore Collections
You are here:
CollectionsOnline
/
Designs for the New State Paper Office, May-June 1829 (8)
Browse
Reference number
SM (15) 82/1/7 (16) 82/1/8 (17) 82/1/9 (18) 82/1/10 (19) 82/1/11 (20) 82/1/31 (21) 82/1/30 (22) 82/1/32
Purpose
Designs for the New State Paper Office, May-June 1829 (8)
Aspect
15 Plan of the Basement Story
16 Plan of the Ground Floor
17 Plan of the First Floor
18 Plan of the upper part of Library and Attic
19 Elevation next the Park
20 Perspective from Duke Street
21 Perspective from the Park
22 Interior perspective of the Library with detail of one of the brackets supporting the gallery
Scale
(15-19) bar scales of 1/9 inch to 1 foot
Inscribed
15 as above, 1, Lincolns Inn Fields, labelled: Vaults (twice), Housekeeper, Bookbinder, Kitchen, Entrance, Store Room, Apartments for the Deputy Keepers Family
16 as above, Lincolns Inn Fields, labelled: Duke Street, Messenger / 12'6'' by 13'9'', Water / Closet, Housemaid's / Closet, Reading Room / 12'6'' by 13'9'', Waiting Room, 12'6'' by 19'0'', Staircase, Entrance Hall, 12'6'' by 19'0'', Room / for Keeping / Treaties / 21' by 24', Deputy Keeper / 23'0'' by 17'0'', Room for / the Keeper / of State Papers / 21' by 24'
17 as above, No 3, Lincolns Inn Fields, labelled: Clerks Room, Water Closet, Sink &c, Reading Room, Room for / arranging / unsorted / Papers, Staircase, Clerks / Room, Library for the State Papers &c
18 as above, 4, Lincolns Inn Fields, labelled: Chamber / for / Housekeeper, Reservoir, Staircase, Reading / Room
19 as above, 5, Lincolns Inn Fields, (pencil) No fire places to be / between the Windows / where it can be avoided / Library to be fire proof / d[itt]o the rest of the building
20 (pencil) No 6
21 (pencil) No 7, No 2
22 No 2
Signed and dated
- May 1829 - June 1829
Medium and dimensions
(15, 16) Pen, pink, blue and grey washes, pricked for transfer with single ruled border on laid paper (295 x 457, 291 x 455) (17) pen, pink and sepia washes, pricked for transfer with single ruled border on laid paper (292 x 452) (18) pen, pink, sepia, grey and blue washes, pricked for transfer with single ruled border on laid paper (291 x 455) (19) pen, raw umber, black and sepia washes, pricked for transfer with single ruled border on laid paper (284 x 442) (20) pencil, sepia, caput, black and green washes with single ruled sepia wash border on laid paper (291 x 410) pencil, sepia, black and blue washes with single ruled sepia wash border on laid paper (293 x 437) (22) pencil, sepia, raw umber, blue and red washes with single ruled sepia wash border on laid paper (293 x 445)
Hand
(15-22) Charles James Richardson (1809-71, pupil and assistant 1824-1837)
Watermark
(15, 18-20) fleur-de-lis above cartouche with bar and below, ornate CA (16, 17, 21, 22) C Ansell 1824
Notes
Drawings 15-22 are the first of three sets of identical designs for the New State Paper Office (see also drawings 23-30 and 31-38). Each set consists of four plans, an elevation of the north front (facing the park), two exterior perspectives and an interior perspective of the library. The building has rooms for the storage of papers, offices for clerks and a bookbinder and accommodation for the Deputy Keeper's family and a housekeeper. Soane's designs include a double-height library, top-lit by five square skylights, with a gallery on the first floor (drawing 22). The desks in the library are specially designed for consulting bound volumes (S. Palmer, 'Sir John Soane and the design of the New State Paper Office, 1829-1834', Archivaria, 60, 2005, p. 61). The north elevation (drawing 19) has six bays. The basement and end bays are rusticated and have channelled quoins, but there are no windows to the attic storey (in contrast to drawings 13-14). The entire attic storey is, in fact, top-lit. In very feint pencil two pilasters have been added to the first and second storeys of the elevation. These relate to Goulburn's request for Soane's new building to emulate the Banqueting House (see scheme note). A note on drawing 19, added later in pencil, carries the instructions that there are to be 'no fire places...between the windows' and that the library is to be fire-proof. Minimising the risk of fire was one of the key requirements of the new building and has been dealt with in detail by Susan Palmer (op. cit., pp. 39-70).
Between 9-12 June 1829, Charles Richardson (1809-71) was 'copying sketch of Mr Gandy's of interior of library New State Paper Office', according to the Soane office Day Books. Gandy's original is not known to have survived.
Between 9-12 June 1829, Charles Richardson (1809-71) was 'copying sketch of Mr Gandy's of interior of library New State Paper Office', according to the Soane office Day Books. Gandy's original is not known to have survived.
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).