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  • image SM 71/2/84

Reference number

SM 71/2/84

Purpose

Presentation drawing of a design for the new Royal Entrance and Scala Regia, July 1822

Aspect

Plan of the Royal Entrance, Scala Regia and new rooms

Scale

bar scale of 1/6 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

labelled: His Majesty's entrance / into the House of Lords, Triumphal Arc (sic), Vestibule, Statue of His / Late Majesty, Cloister / or / Corridor (twice), Peers Entr[ance], The Lord Chancellors / Entrance, His Majestys Robing Room, The Bishops Entrance, leading to the, Scala Regia, A.B.C. These three rooms are proposed ^to form a National Monument to be decorated with / Paintings, Bassi-relievi & statues to perpetuate the glorious / achievements of British Valour by Sea & Land, which ultimately / produced those great results as under the Auspices of / His Majesty gave Peace to all the World, A.B.C. Through these rooms ^forming a national monument His Majesty passes into the / Robing Room previously to ascending the Throne, A, Statue / of His Majesty, B, C, The Painted Chamber

Signed and dated

  • July 1822
    John Soane Archt Lincolns Inn Fields July 1822

Medium and dimensions

Pen, yellow ochre, sepia, pink and burnt Sienna washes, pricked for transfer with multi-ruled sepia and black wash border on wove paper (650 x 920)

Hand

Soane Office

Watermark

J Whatman 1821

Notes

This plan is more extensive than SM 71/2/83 and shows two rooms, labelled 'A' (the Prince's Chamber) and 'B', of which only the interiors have been altered. Soane's note explains: 'These three rooms ['A', 'B' and 'C' - the Painted Chamber] are proposed to form a national monument with paintings, bassi-relievi and statues to perpetuate the glorious achievements of British valour'. The King would proceed from the Scala Regia through these three rooms into his Robing Room. This processional route is shown in pink wash. Two statues are labelled - one in the arcade of 'his late majesty' George III and one of the present monarch, George IV, in Gallery 'A'.

The Scala Regia is positioned in enfilade with the vestibule and Gallery 'A'. Soane had experimented with the staircase in different positions, either in parallel to the existing wall or in enfilade with the Prince's Chamber and the vestibule (SM 71/2/82, SM 71/2/83, SM 71/2/80, SM 89/3/71). Placing the Scala Regia in enfilade here meant that the statue of George IV would be visible from the bottom of the staircase, forming a focal point for the royal approach to the House of Lords, something that would have greatly appealed to the King.

See also SM 71/2/65 and SM 71/2/66. Soane's Royal Gallery was executed in 1824 to new designs.

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).