Survey drawing of the Scala Regia as executed, December 1822

Explore Collections

You are here: CollectionsOnline / Survey drawing of the Scala Regia as executed, December 1822

Browse

Sir John Soane office drawings: the drawings of Sir John Soane and the office of Sir John Soane
- Office of Works
  - London: Palace of Westminster: designs for alterations and additions, 1793-1828 (499)
    - London: House of Lords, Palace of Westminster: alterations and additions, 1817-28 (220)
      - Royal Entrance and Scala Regia, 1822-23 (68)

Use of images and copyright
Enlarge this Image

Print this image in A4 view

Reference number

SM 71/2/45

Purpose

Survey drawing of the Scala Regia as executed, December 1822

Aspect

Section of the Scala Regia

Scale

bar scale of 1/2 inch to 1 foot

Inscribed

as above, labelled: House of Lords, 9'3'', 10'2'', (pencil) Centre and (pencil) dimensions given

Signed and dated

December 1822
December 1822

Medium and dimensions

Pen and pencil, pricked for transfer on wove paper (521 x 720)

Hand

Soane Office

Watermark

Smith & Allnutt 1817

Notes

This is the most complete survey of the decoration of the Scala Regia to date and shows the extent of the ornamentation in this part of the Royal Entrance. At the base of the Scala Regia is a tall vestibule with round-headed arches that have numerous layers of rolls and floral bosses decorating the intrados. The ground floor is banded and has four small niches. In the middle bay of the Scala Regia, fluted Ionic columns carry an entablature ornamented with Greek fret moulding. Above this is a scalloped, shallow dome with a central lantern (which is drawn in pencil). Compared to an earlier design (SM 71/2/44) the clerestory has been removed and the first and third bays have been given matching barrel-vaulted ceilings with coffering. The bays on either side of the centre have niches framed by incised panel pilasters.

For finished perspective views, see SM volume 61/28-31 and XP16.

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).